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SHAKESPEARE'S 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 



INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL. 



FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES. 



Rev. henry N. HUDSON, LL.D, 



GINN & COMPANY 

BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 



ri^ ^.,r 



LIBRARY of COWGRESS 
Two Oocies Recerved 

JAN 30 1909 

Copyrifc-nt tntry 

JbusS CC XXC, No, 

COPY a. 



no i 



onBtv&5jii ijirittfq 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year i88i, by 

Henry N. Hudson, 
in the office of the Librarian ot Congress, at Washington. 



GINN & COMPANY • PRO- 
PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Date of the Composition. 

THE Tragedy of xA.ntony and Cleopatra was never 
printed that we know of till in the folio of 1623. As 
to the time when it was written, the most that we have to pro- 
ceed upon, aside from the qualities of the work itself, is an 
entry at the Stationers' by Edward Blount, May 20, 1608, of "a 
book called Antony and Cleopatra." Whether Shakespeare's 
drama were the "book" referred to in this entry, is some- 
thing questionable, as the subject was at that time often 
written upon, dramatically or otherwise. Of course the en- 
try was made with the design of publication ; so that, if it 
refer to the play in hand, either such design must have mis- 
carried, or else the edition has been utterly lost. Blount 
was one of the publishers of the first folio ; and in the entry 
made by him and Jaggard at the Stationers', November 8, 
1623, Antony and Cleopatra is among the plays set down 
as "not formerly entered to other men." Which certainly 
favours the conclusion that the entry of 1608 referred to the 
same play. 

There is perhaps no point in the early history of the Eng- 
lish stage more certain than that the theatrical companies 
took every precaution in order to keep their plays out of 
print. And we have strong ground for believing that, after 
the edition of Hamlet in 1 604, there was no authorized issue 



4 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

of any of the Poet's dramas during his lifetime. This may have 
been, and probably was, the cause of there being no edition 
of this play in pursuance of the entry in question. 

Knight and Verplanck argue that Shakespeare's Antony 
and Cleopatra was not written till after the date of Blount's 
entry, and that this entry referred to some other perform- 
ance; their main reason being the admitted fact that the 
style of this play bespeaks the Poet's highest maturity of 
mind. I agree, however, with Malone and Collier in as- 
signing the composition to 1607, or the early part of 1608, 
when the author was in his forty-fourth year. This brings 
it within the same five years of his life, from 1605 to 16 10, 
which witnessed the production of Macbeth and King Lear. 
It will hardly be questioned that at the time of writing these 
dramas the Poet's mind was equal to any achievement within 
the compass of human thought. Nor can I taste any pecu- 
liarities of style in this play, as distinguished from the proper 
tokens of dramatic power, that should needs infer any more 
ripeness of mind than in case of the other dramas of that 
period. 

I must add that the original text of this play is not very 
well printed, even for that time or that volume, and has a 
number of corruptions that are exceedingly trying to an 
editor. And, indeed, the style of the play is so superla- 
tively idiomatic, and abounds in such splendid andacities 
of diction and imagery, that it might well be very puzzling to 
any transcriber or printer or proof-reader, unless the author's 
hand-writing were much plainer than it appears to have 
been, from the specimens that have come down to us. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Source of the Matter. 



In Antony and Cleopatra, the drawings from history, 
though perhaps not larger in the whole than we find in 
some other plays, are, however, more minute and circum- 
stantial. Here the Poet seems to have picked and sifted 
out from old Plutarch, with the most scrupulous particu- 
larity, every fact, every embellishment, and every line and 
hint of character, that could be wrought coherently into the 
structure and process of the work ; the whole thus evincing 
the closest study and the exactest use of the matter before 
him. Notwithstanding, his genius is as far as ever from 
seeming at all encumbered with help, or anywise cramped 
or shackled by the restraints of history : on the contrary, 
his creative faculties move so freely and play so spontane- 
ously under and through the Plutarchian matter, that the 
borrowings seem no less original than what he created, and 
the inventions no less historical than what he borrowed. I 
say inventions, for many of the finest scenes and passages 
are purely such : yet these seem to have caught the very 
spirit and method of the old material; so that the whole 
work is perfectly fused into one substance, all the parts being 
just as much of the same grain and texture as if they had 
originally grown together. 

It is well known that even in matters of history fictions 
often express the real truth of things much better than any 
facts which history has preserved. This, to be sure, may 
sometimes proceed from a kind of psychological compara- 
tive anatomy, whereby a sagacious mind, from a small relic 
of fact, a single tooth or bone, as it were, reconstructs the 
living whole. Take, for instance, the early part of the 17th 
century : I suppose no competent judge will question that 



6 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

many of the leading characters, as well as the manners and 
spirit of that time, are far better delivered by Sir Walter 
Scott in The Fortunes of Nigel than in any so-called 
authentic history of the same period. And it may be safely 
affirmed that in this drama, as in others of an historical 
nature, the Poet never cares to draw upon his inventive 
powers, save when by so doing he can bring out the truth 
of his characters more vividly, more dramatically, and even 
more fairly, than it is conveyed in the forms and incidents 
which the history offered him ; not to mention that he often 
extracts and concentrates the life and efficacy of many in- 
cidents in one representative invention ; thus giving the 
substantial truth of them all, without the literal truth of 
any one. Nor, closely as he here works to the record, is 
there any one of his dramas wherein he shows a more 
fertile and pregnant inventiveness ; many of the scenes 
being perfectly original, and at the same time truer to the 
history in effect than the history is to itself. For it is not 
too much to say that he had the art to express what was in 
his persons far better than they knew how to express it 
themselves. How he could thus endow them with his own 
intellect, or with so much of it as they needed, without dis- 
turbing their individuality at all, or impairing their proper 
self-consciousness, is a mystery which perhaps no effort of 
criticism can solve. 

^ Historic Outline. 

Soon after the overthrow of Brutus and Cassius at Phi- 
lippi, which occured in the Fall of the year B.C. 42, the 
Triumvirs, Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus, partitioned the 
Roman world among themselves, Antony taking the East- 
ern provinces as his share. The next year, while on his way 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

with an army against the Parthians, he summoned Cleopatra 
to meet him in CiHcia, and give an account of her recent 
doings in aid of Brutus and Cassius. She responded in the 
celebrated adventure in which she caught the amorous Tri- 
umvir, and "pursed up his heart upon the river of Cydnus." 
In his account of this conquest, the Poet does little more 
than translate the delectable old narrative of Plutarch into 
dialogue. The result of the affair was that Cleopatra led 
Antony captive to Alexandria, where he lost himself in the 
prodigious revelries and sensualities of the Egyptian Court. 
Thereupon his ferocious wife, Fulvia, together with his brother 
Lucius, who was then Consul, raised a war in Italy against 
Octavius, her pupose being, it was said, to disenchant her 
husband and draw him back to Rome. In the Spring, how- 
ever, of the year 40 B.C., Fulvia died; from which event 
dates the opening of the play. 

In the course of the same year Antony was married to 
Octavia ; by which marriage the difficulties of the two Tri- 
umvirs were expected to be permanently healed ; though, as 
the issue proved, " the band that seemed to tie their friend- 
ship together was the very strangler of their amity."" This 
was followed, the next year, by the treaty with Sextus Pom- 
pey at Misenum. For some four years, Antony, in form at 
least, kept his faith with Octavia, who bore him two children. 
But, with all her beauty and wisdom and illustrious virtues, 
she could make no abiding impression upon him : his 
thoughts kept flying back to Egypt. In the year B.C. ^6, 
he set forth on another expedition against the Parthians, and 
sent an invitation to Cleopatra to join him ; and on her doing 
so he fell more hopelessly than ever under her enchantment, 
lavishing realms and cities upon her as if the whole world 
were his, and he valued it only that he might give it to her 



8 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

I will here condense a brief portion of North's Plutarch, by 
way of indicating how the Poet uses the historian : 

" Then began the pestilent mischief of Cleopatra's love 
to kindle again as soon as Antony came near unto Syria, 
and in the end did put out of his head all honest and com- 
mendable thoughts. Whilst he was preparing to make war 
with the Parthians, his wife, whom he had left at Rome, 
would needs take sea to come to him. Her brother was 
willing to it, not so much for any respect to Antony, as that 
he might have a colour to make war with him, if he should 
misuse her. But, when she was come to Athens, she re- 
ceived letters from Antony, willing her to stay there until 
his coming. Though much grieved at this, knowing it was 
but an excuse, yet she asked him by her letters whether he 
would have those things sent to him which she had brought, 
being great store of apparel for soldiers, sums of money and 
gifts to bestow on his friends and captains, and two thou- 
sand men well armed. When one of Antony's friends 
brought this news from Octavia, and withal did greatly 
praise her, Cleopatra, fearing she would be too strong for 
her, and win him away, subtly seemed to languish for love 
of Antony, pining her body for lack of meat. Further- 
more, she so framed her countenance, that, when Antony 
came to see her, she cast her eyes upon him like a woman 
ravished with joy. Straight, again, when he went from her, 
she fell a-weeping, and still managed that he should often 
find her weeping ; and, when he came suddenly upon her, 
she made as though she dried her eyes, and turned away 
her face as if unwilling he should see her weep. Then her 
flatterers blamed Antony, telling him he was a hard-natured 
man and had small love in him, that would see a poor lady 
in such torment for his sake. 'For Octavia,' they said, 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

' that was only married to him because of her brother's 
affairs, hath the honour to be called Antony's lawful wife ; 
and Cleopatra, born a queen, is only named Antony's 
leman ; yet she disdained not to be so called, if she might 
enjoy his company and live with him ; but, if he once leave 
her, then it is impossible she should live.' By these flatter- 
ies they so wrought his effeminate mind that, fearing lest 
she should make herself away, he returned to Alexandria." 
/^Once again at the Egyptian capital, Antony sank forth- 
With into a full-blown voluptuary. The accounts of his 
gigantic profligacy are indeed almost incredible, and would 
be thoroughly so, but for the support they derive from the 
well-known customs of the "gorgeous East." Still, how- 
ever, Antony, as "a. Roman thought struck him," varied his 
debaucheries from time to time with fits of spasmodic hero- 
ism in the camp and the field ; though ever returning from 
these to plunge still deeper in the turbid stream of Oriental 
voluptuousness. In these fierce bacchanahan orgies, the , 
Queen was always at hand, pampering his grosser appe- 
tites with rank and furious indulgences, and stimulating his 
flagging zest in them by cunning surprises : whenever he 
showed a reviving taste for nobler pleasures, she was prompt 
to gratify it with works of art and hterature ; and sometimes, 
when the mood was on, she would call in the aids of 
philosophy and criticism, to reinforce the spells under which 
she held him. At length, she wound up the climax of 
extravagance by arraying herself in the garb and claiming 
the prerogatives of the goddess Isis, at the same time in- 
ducing Antony to usurp the titles and attributes of the god 
Osiris. The notion that a man might rise to union with 
deity had gradually hardened into a custom of admitting 
the royal right of apotheosis. Some years before, Antony 



( i'^ 



lO ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

had assumed the character and style of Bacchus at Athens. 
He now came forth as the Nile-god, or fructifying power of 
the Coptic mythology, to claim the religious veneration of 
the Egyptian people. 

All these mad doings were closely watched by the cold- 
blooded and astute Octavius, who worked them with terri- 
ble effect against his rival at Rome. And his purpose 
herein was greatly furthered by the noble behaviour of Oc- 
tavia, who still kept her husband's house at Rome, and 
devoted herself religiously to the care of his children, both 
her own and those that Fulvia had borne him, as if she 
thought of nothing but to approve herself in every thing a 
true and loyal wife. By this course she only knit the hearts 
of the Roman people still more firmly to her cause ; so that 
they resented Antony's sins against her almost as much as 
they did those against the national honour and religion. 

The quarrel thus engendered and fostered came to a head 
in the great battle of Actium, which took place in vSeptem- 
ber of the year B.C. 31. Stripped of fleet and army, and 
covered with shame and foul dishonour, Antony returned 
to Egypt to brood sullenly over the past. The next year, 
Octavius followed with an army, and his work there was 
finished by the death of Cleopatra in August. So that the 
events of the play cover a period of a little more than ten 
years ; the scene shifting to various parts of the Empire, 
Alexandria, Rome, Misenum, Athens, the plains of Syria, 
and several fields of battle. 

I must add one more short passage from Plutarch as aptly 
showing the minuteness of detail with which the drama fol- 
lows the history. It refers to the intercourse of Octavius 
and Antony after the marriage of the latter with Octavia : 
" With Antony there was a soothsayer of Egypt, that could 



INTRODUCTION. II 

judge of men's nativities, to tell what should happen to them. 
He, either to please Cleopatra, or because he found it so by 
his art, told Antony that his fortune, which of itself was good 
and great, was altogether blemished and obscured by Caesar's ; 
and therefore he counselled him to get as far from him as he 
could. ' For thy demon,' said he, ' that is, the good angel 
that keepeth thee, is afraid of his; and, being courageous 
and high when alone, becometh fearful and timorous when 
near the other.' Howsoever it was, the events ensuing proved 
the Egyptian's words true : for it is said that as often as they 
drew cuts for pastime, or whether they played at dice, An- 
tony always lost. Oftentimes, when they were disposed to 
see cock-fights, or quails that were taught to fight one with 
another, Caesar's cocks or quails did ever overcome. The 
which spited Antony in his mind, although he made no out- 
ward show of it ; and therefore he believed the Egyptian the 
better." 

General Characteristics. 

Judging by my own experience, Antony and Cleopatra is | 
the last of Shakespeare's plays that one grows to appreciate. ' 
This seems partly owing to the. excellences of the work, and 
partly not. For it is marked beyond any other by a superabun- 
dance of external animation, as well as by a surpassing fine- 
ness of workmanship, such as needs oft-repeated and most 
careful perusal to bring out full upon the mind's eye. The 
great number and variety of events crowded together in it, 
the rapidity with which they pass before us, and, consequent- 
ly, the frequent changes of scene, hold curiosity on the stretch, 
and somewhat overfill the mind with sensuous effect, so as-- 
for a long time to distract and divert the thoughts from those 
subtilties of characterization and delicacies of poetry which 



12 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

everywhere accompany them. In the redundancy of inci- 
dental interest and excitement, one cannot without long 
familiarity so possess his faculties as to pause and take time 
for such recondite and protean efficacies to work their prop- 
er effect. I am by no means sure but the two things nat- 
urally go together ; yet I have to confess it has long seemed 
to me, that by selecting fewer incidents, or by condensing 
the import and spirit of them into larger masses, what is 
now a serious fault in the drama might have been avoided. 

Bating this defect, if indeed it be a defect, there is none 
of Shakespeare's plays which, after many years of study, 
leaves a profounder impression of hi^ greatness. In^ quan- 
tity and variety of characterization,^ it is equalled by few, 
and hardly surpassed by any, of his dramas. Antony, Cleo--^ 
patra, Octavius, Octavia, Lepidus, Pompey, Enobarbus, not i 
to mention divers others of still less presence on the scene, 
are perfectly discriminated and sustained to the last ; all 
being wrought out in such distinct, self-centred, and self- 
rounded individuality, that we contract and keep up a sort 
of personal acquaintance with each and every one of them. 
In respect of style and diction, too, the best qualities of the 
Poet's best period are here concentrated in special force. 
The play abounds, more than any other, in those sharp, in- 
stantaneous jets of poetic rapture, a kind of vital ecstasy, 
which keep the experienced reader's mind all aglow with 
animation and inward delight. The compressed and flash- 
ing energy, striking in new light from the very hardness of 
that which resists ; the stern and solid ground-work of 
thought, with fresh images, or suggestions of images, shoot- 
ing up from it ever and anon, kindling the imagination with 
all the force of surprise, and setting their path on fire by the 
suddenness and swiftness of their coming ; while their " pierc- 



INTRODUCTION. 1 3 

ing sweetness " prints a relish on the taste that adds zest and 
spirit to the whole preparation; — such, not indeed exclu- 
sively, but in a peculiar degree, are the characteristics of this 
astonishing drama. 

But I hardly dare speak my own sense of the work with- 
out the support of better judgments. " Of all Shakespeare's 
historical plays," says Coleridge, "Antony and Cleopatra 
is by far the most wonderful. There is not one in which 
he has followed history so minutely, and yet there are few in. 
which he impresses the notion of angelic strength so much ; i 
perhaps none in which he impresses it more strongly. The ! 
highest praise, or rather form of praise, which I can offer in / 
my own mind, is the doubt which the perusal always occa- ; 
sions in me, whether this play is not, in all the exhibitions 
of a giant power in its strength and vigour of maturity, a 
formidable rival of Macbeth, Lear, Hamlet, and Othello. 
Feliciter audax is the motto for its style comparatively 
with that of Shakespeare's other works, even as it is the 
general motto of all his works compared with those of 
other poets." 

Nor is this " happy valiancy " by any means confined to 
the matter of style. The drama is equally daring, equally 
audacious, in a moral sense. For, as regards the hero and 
heroine, it is a noteworthy point how little we feel or think 
of any moral or immoral quality in their doings. In their in- 
toxication of empire, of self-aggrandizement, and of mutual 
passion, they fairly overshoot the whole region of duty and 
obligation. To themselves and to each other, they are 
simply gods : as such, their freedom is absolute : they tran- 
scend all relative measures, and know no centre or source of 
law outside of their own personality : their own wills are their 
ultimate reason, their supreme law ; the moral gravitation of 



14 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

the world having, as it were, no hold upon them, nor any 
right to control them. We have a hint of this in the opening 
of the play, when Cleopatra says, " I'll set a bourn how far 
to be beloved," and Antony replies, "Then must thou needs 
find out new heaven, new earth." And still more a little 
after, when he crowns her enchanting banter with the words. 

Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch 
Of the ranged empire fall ! Here is my space. 
Kingdoms are clay : our dungy earth alike 
Feeds beast as man : the nobleness of life 
Ic to do thus ; when such a mutual pair, 
And such a twain can do't ; in which I bind. 
On pain of punishment, the world to weet 
We stand up peerless. 

But are they in any sort excusably sincere in all this? I 
answer. Yes, they are. For, in the first place, the passion 
which mainly absorbs them naturally carries with it a sense 
of infinitude, insomuch that all things else seem as nothing 
in comparison either with itself or with its object. And, in 
the second place, as I have already observed, the Eastern 
notions of human apotheosis had gradually invaded and 
leavened the mind of the West. This was most notably 
exemplified in the national deification of the great Julius 
soon after his death ; which evidently could not have been 
done, but that the Roman mind had long been in a secret 
course of preparation for it. Practically the same thing was 
done with Augustus and his successors even before their 
death. And indeed it may well be thought that nothing 
less than a reputed deity in human form would then suffice 
to hold the Roman world in order ; a deep social need thus 
suggesting and shaping the individual faith. An attenuated 
form of the same thing has survived even down to our time 
in the doctrine of the divine right of kings and the divine 



INTRODUCTION. 1 5 

right of bishops : whether it ought to have survived or not, 
is beside my present purpose. 

Now there is no good reason why the great Roman 
Triumvir and the angehc "serpent of old Nile" should not 
have shared in this common belief of their time. The Poet 
freely grants them the benefit of this delusion, at the same 
time lending them all the aid of his genius, that they may play 
it out to their heart's content, and also to its legitimate results 
in the fate that so sternly shuts down upon them at last. 
Nor is the effect of the thing any the less in keeping, that 
it assumes in them the character of a high- wrought poetical 
frenzy. That was the ancient heathen notion of divine pos- 
session. And the Poet makes us sympathize so far with 
their magnificent infatuation, that we cheerfully accord to 
them a sort of special privilege and exemption. Thus their 
action leaves our" moral feelings altogether behind, and in- 
deed soars, or, which comes to the same thing, sinks, quite 
beyond their ken. Nay, more ; our thoughts and imagina- 
tions take with them, so to speak, a glad holiday in a strange 
country where the laws of duty undergo a willing suspension, 
and conscience temporarily abdicates her throne. Nor are 
we anywise damaged by this process. Rather say, the laws 
of duty are all the sweeter to us after such a brief escape 
from them ; mark, I say escape from them, not transgression 
of them ; which is a very different thing. So that the drama 
is perfectly free from any thing approaching to moral taint 
or infection. The very extravagance of the leading char- 
acters causes their action to be felt by us as strictly excep- 
tional. In fact, we no more think of drawing their rules to 
us or ours to them, than we do of claiming the liberty of a 
comet with its eccentric orbit and long tail. We merely 
enjoy the vision of its pranks, and take no license from them. 



l6 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

In this respect, the play, I grant, illustrates just as high a 
reach of moral audacity as seems compatible with moral 
purity.* 

Another very remarkable feature of this drama lies in 
what may be termed the author's personal relation to the 
work. The leading characterization is steeped in a most 
refined and subtle guile. Every now and then we catch 
an arch twinkle of glorious mischief peeping from the Poet's 
eye ; though never in a manner or to a degree that is at all 
inconsistent with perfect earnestness and perfect innocence 
of delineation. This, to be sure, is a personal quality, and 
therefore it requires to be managed with consummate art, 
lest it should disturb the dramatic equanimity and calmness 
of the work, or tinge the individuality of the persons with a 
colour not properly their own. Thus the Poet himself is in 
this play more than in any other except King Henry the Fifth, 

* I find a similar view well expressed in Heraud's Inner Life of Shake- 
speare : " We have already witnessed the Poet looking down, as a superior 
intelligence, on the loves of Troilus and Cressida, and sporting as an equal 
with those of Venus and Adonis. We have now to see him identifying him- 
self with two mortals at the height of fortune, who, in a species of heroic 
madness, had conceived themselves to be in the position of Divine Powers. 
This is the elevation at which Shakespeare sustains his argument, and this 
prevents it from becoming immoral, as it does in the hands of Dryden, who 
paints his heroine and hero as mere human persons indulging in voluptu- 
ous and licentious habits. No notion of guilt attaches to the conduct of 
Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra either in the Poet's opinion or their 
own. They consciously acknowledge, and therefore trangress, no law. 
They live in an ideal region, far above the reach of a moral code, and 
justify their acts on the warranty of their own nature. They swear by and 
recognize no higher power than themselves. That this is a false position 
there is no doubt ; and the Poet, by the catastrophe of his tragedy, shows 
it to have been such. But while the divine revels last the actors in them 
fully believe that they are the divinities whom they would represent. They 
sit on thrones outside the circle of the round globe, and repose on couches 
which float in air like clouds, and never touch the surface of the planet." 



INTRODUCTION. 1/ 

though only in the sense of an intellectual and impersonal 
presence. 

Delineation of Enobarbus. 

Of this most delicate and unobtrusive irony Enobarbus is 
the organ, who serves the office of a chorus in the play, to 
interpret between the author and his audience. Through 
him the Poet keeps up a secret understanding with us, all 
the while inwardly sporting himself with his characters, and 
laughing at them, yet at the same time gravely humouring 
their extravagances and clothing them with his most cunning 
style. For, if you note it well, I think you will feel that 
Enobarbus is himself far from understanding the deep wis- 
dom and sagacity of what he utters. It is as if some pure 
intelligential spirit were at his side, inspiring him with thoughts 
quite beyond his unaided reach. Thus the Poet seems to be 
invisibly present with him, to witness what is going on, and 
at the same time to play with and moralize the events and 
persons of the scene. 

Nevertheless Enobarbus is to all intents and purposes one 
of the persons of the drama, and not in any sort a mere 
personified emanation of the author. His individual being 
stands as firm and inviolate as that of any of the characters ; 
his personality being no more displaced or impaired by the 
Poet's intellectual presence than that of the sacred penmen 
was by the Power that inspired them to and for their 
appointed work. So that we have in him at once a charac- 
ter and a commentary. Of course, therefore, I do not mean 
but that the man is just as much himself as if there were 
nothing in him or coming from him but himself; my idea 
being that Shakespeare merely transfuses into him so much 
of his owr sense of things as would answer the purpose in 



1 8 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

question. The point, in short, is just this : In case of the 
other persons, the Poet does not inspire them at all ; he only 
delivers them, and this too without any thing of himself in 
them ; in Enobarbus he does both. 

To illustrate and to approve what I have been saying, it 
seems needful to quote a few of this man's words. Thus, 
near the opening of the play, when Antony tells him he is 
going to leave Egypt : 

E710. Cleopatra, catching but the least noise of this, dies instantly; I 
have seen her die twenty times upon far poorer moment : I do think there 
is mettle in death, which commits some loving act upon her, she hath such 
a celerity in dying. 

Ant. She is cunning past man's thought. 

Eno. Alack, sir, no ; her passions are made of nothing but the finest 
part of pure love. We cannot call her winds and waters sighs and tears ; 
they are greater storms and tempests than almanacs can report : this 
cannot be cunning in her; if it be, she makes a shower of rain as well 
as Jove. 

Ant. Would I had never seen her ! 

Eno. O, sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful piece of work; 
which not to have been bless'd withal would have discredited your travel. 

Here I cannot doubt that we have Shakespeare's own 
ironical interpretation of the matter in question. Why, the 
pith of the whole drama is covertly insinuated in this brief 
passage. It would not be easy to produce a finer instance 
of dramatic guile. And with what smooth celerity the 
speaker's thought shifts its hues at each instant of the 
expression ! twinkling out his satire with an art as subtile as 
that of the heroine herself So too, after the marriage of 
Antony and Octavia, when the latter is taking leave of her 
brother, and we have this bit of dialogue aside : 

Eno. Will Caesar weep ? 
Agrip. He has a cloud in's face. 



INTRODUCTION. I9 

Eno. He were the worse for that were he a horse ; 
So is he, being a man. 

Agrip. Why, Enobarbus, 

When Antony found Julius Caesar dead. 
He cried almost to roaring ; and he wept 
When at Philippi he found Brutus slain. 

Eno. That year, indeed, he was troubled with a rheum ; 
What willingly he did confound he wail'd, 
Believe't, till I wept too. 

In these sharp jets of pungent humour, which touch the 
very core of both Octavius and Antony, do we not taste the 
Poet's own sense of those characters ? And again, in what 
Enobarbus says to himself when Antony so absurdly dares 
Octavius to a personal duel : 

Yes, like enough, high-battled Caesar will 
Unstate his happiness, and be staged to th' show 
Against a sworder ! ,1 see men's judgments are 
A parcel of their fortunes ; and things outward 
Do draw the inward quality after them, 
To suffer all alike. That he should dream, 
Knowing all measures, the full Caesar will 
Answer his emptiness ! — Caesar, thou hast subdued 
His judgment too. 

For one more instance, take his piercing reflections when 
Antony, after the fierce shame of Actium, raves out his 
desperate valour : 

Now he'll outstare the lightning. To be furious, 

Is to be frighted out of fear ; and in that mood 

The dove will peck the estridge. I see still 

A diminution in our captain's brain 

Restores his heart. When valour preys on reason, 

It eats the sword it fights with. I will seek 

Some way to leave him. 

Thus, throughout, his caustic wit and searching irony of 
discourse interpret with remorseless fidelity the moral im- 



20 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, 

port of the characters and movements about him. But, 
aside from his function as chorus, he is perhaps, after Octa- 
via, the noblest character in the drama. His blunt, prompt, 
outspoken frankness smacks delightfully of the hardy Roman 
soldier brought face to face with the orgies of a most un- 
Roman levity ; while the splitting of his big heart with grief 
and shame for having deserted the ship of his master, which 
he knew to be sinking, shows him altogether a noble vessel 
of manhood. That Antony's generosity kills him, approves, 
as nothing else could, how generous he is himself. The 
character is almost entirely the Poet's own creation, Plutarch 
furnishing but one or two unpregnant hints towards it. 

Lepidus the Triumvir. 

In the case of Lepidus, also, tlie historian could have 
yielded but a few slight points towards the character as drawn 
by Shakespeare. The Lepidus of the play, the " barren-spir- 
ited fellow," the " slight unmeritable man meet to be sent 
on errands," bears a strong likeness to the veritable pack- 
horse of the Triumvirate, trying to strut and swell himself up 
to the dimensions of his place, and thereby of course only 
betraying his emptiness the more. Such appears to have 
been about the real pitch and quality of the man, according 
to the notices given of him by other writers ; as Paterculus, 
for example, who calls him vir omnium vaiiissimus : but 
whether the Poet used any of those authorities, or merely 
drew from his own intuitive knowledge of human nature, is a 
question not easily answered. Vain, sycophantic, unprinci- 
pled, boobyish, he serves as a capital butt to his great asso- 
ciates, while his very elevation only renders him a more pro- 
voking target for their wit. Their playing upon him at Pom- 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

pey's feast, when his poor brain is greased and his tongue 
made thick with wine, and the acute burlesque which Eno- 
barbus soon after runs upon his "green sickness," are among 
the spicy things of the drama. In the play oi Julius CcBsar, 
the "noble Lepidus " is described as one that feeds 

On objects, arts, and imitations 

Which, out of use and staled by other men, 

Begin his fashion. 

Which* is but a poetical version of what Falstafif says of 
Justice Shallow, as he knew him in his youth at Clement's- 
Inn : " He came ever in the rearward of the fashion, and 
sung those tunes to the overscutch'd huswives that he heard 
the carmen whistle, and sware they were his Fancies or his 
Good-nights." 

Character of Octavius. 

Octavius, who for more than forty years after the battle 
of Actium was the acknowledged master of the Roman world, 
is probably the most intricate and inscrutable character in 
history. In his plenitude of political astuteness, he seems to 
have understood, better than any other man we read of, that 
his true strength was to hold still, and let his adversaries rot 
themselves with motion. The later historians, as Merivale 
and Smith, find that the one principle which gave aim and 
unity to his earlier life, and reconciled all his seeming con- 
tradictions of behaviour, was a fixed resolution to avenge the 
slaughter of his mighty uncle and adoptive father, whose 
' mantle had fallen upon him, and who, as he believed, would 
from his seat among the gods hold the aegis of Providence 
over him. Be this as it may, at different times he acted in 
the opposite extremes of cruelty and clemency ; yet not, for 



22 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

SO it appears, because he was either cruel or clement at heart, 
but from an insight, or from an instinct, it is uncertain which, 
of the largest and deepest poUcy. Under a cold, polished, 
reserved, and dignified exterior, he concealed a soul of 
indomitable energy, and a tenacity of purpose which no vicis- 
situdes could shake. His state of mind at the close of life is 
thus described by Merivale : " He had made peace with him- 
self, to whom alone he felt himself responsible ; neither God 
nor man, in his view, had any claim upon him. The nations 
had not proclaimed him a deity in vain ; he had seemed to 
himself to grow up to the full proportions they ascribed to 
him." In this shape, be it observed, we have the old age of 
one who, a cool, shrewd, subtle youth of nineteen, had suf- 
fered neither interest nor vanity to warp his judgment, nor 
any roving imaginations to hinder the accomplishment of 
his purposes. 

Schlegel and others have justly observed that the great 
fame and fortune of Augustus did not prevent Shakespeare 
from seeing through him, and understanding his character 
rightly; yet he managed the representation so adroitly as 
not to offend the prevalent opinion of the time, which, daz- 
zled by the man's astonishing success, rated him much 
above his true measure. The Poet sets him forth as a dry, 
passionless, elastic diplomatist : there is not a generous 
thought comes from him, except in reference to his sister ; 
and even then there is something ambiguous about.. ^ it 
seems more than half born of the occasion he has to use her 
for his self-ends. But then, as he has no keen tastes nor 
kindling enthusiasms, so he is free from all illusions. He is 
just the man for the full-souled Antony to think of with 
scorn, even while the dread of his better stars holds him to 
a constrained and studied respect. His artful tackings and 



INTRODUCTION. 23 

shiftings, to keep the ship of State, freighted as it is with the 
treasure of his own ascendency, before the gale of fortune, 
make a fine contrast to the frank and forthright lustihood of 
Antony, bold and free alike in his sinnings and his self-accus- 
ings. Octavius is indeed plentifully endowed with prudence, 
foresight, and moderation ; which, if not themselves virtues, 
naturally infer, as their root and basis, the cardinal virtue of 
self-control : and the cunning of the delineation lies partly in 
that the reader is left to derive them from this source, if he 
be so disposed ; while it is nevertheless easy to see that the 
Poet regards them as springing not so much from self- 
, control, as from the want of any hearty impulses to be con- 
trolled. 

Octavia. 

Octavia has furnishings enough for the heroine of a great 
tragedy ; but she is not fitted to shine in the same sphere 
with Cleopatra, as her mild, steady, serene light would needs 
be paralyzed by the meteoric showers of the Egyptian en- 
chantress. The Poet has hardly done justice to her sweet 
and sohd qualities ; and indeed, from the nature of the case, 
the more justice she had received, the more she would have 
suffered from the perilous brilliancy of her rival. Yet he 
shows that he fully knew and felt her beauty and elevation 
of character, by the impression that others take of her. 
Her behaviour in the play is always dignified, discreet, and 
womanly; while her "holy, cold, and still conversation," the 
dreaded chastisements of her sober eye, her patience, mod- 
esty, and silent austerity of reproof, as these are reflected 
from the thoughts of those who have given themselves most 
cause to wish her other than she is, gain her something bet- 
ter than our admiration. The Poet's good judgment in not 



24 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

bringing her and Cleopatra together is deservedly celebrated. 
But indeed there needed less of intellectual righteousness 
than he possessed, to see that such a woman as Octavia 
shines best in the modesty that keeps her from shining, 
especially when such an unholy splendour is by. Her best 
eulogy, considering the known qualities of her husband, is 
written in the anguish of jealousy which Cleopatra suffers on 
learning the fact of Antony's marriage ; wherein, by the way, 
all the witching arts of the queenly siren are for the moment 
quenched in the natural feelings of the woman : 

O Iras ! Charmian ! — 'Tis no matter. — 
Go to the fellow, good Alexas ; bid him 
Report the feature of Octavia, her years, 
Her inclination ; let him not leave out 
The colour of her hair: bring me word, quickly. — 
Let him for ever go : — let him not, Charmian ; 
Though he be painted one way like a Gorgon, 
The other way's a Mars. Bid you Alexas 
Bring me word how tall she is. Pity me, Charmian, 
But do not speak to me. Lead me to my chamber. 

Cleopatra. 

" Her beauty was not so passing, nor such as upon pres- 
ent view did enamour men with her, but so sweet was her 
company and conversation that a man could not but be 
taken. And, besides her beauty, the good grace she had to 
talk and discourse, her courteous nature that tempered her 
words and deeds, was as a spur that pricked to the quick ; 
for her tongue was an instrument of music to divers sports 
and pastimes, the which she easily turned into any language 
that pleased her." — Such is Plutarch's idea of the heroine 
as rendered in the racy old English of Sir Thomas North./ 

Cleopatra is, I think, Shakespeare's masterpiece in female 



INTRODUCTION. 2$ 

characterization. There is literally no measuring the art in- 
volved in the delineation. As Campbell the poet remarks, 
" he paints her as if the gipsy herself had cast her spelLover 
him, and given her own witchcraft to his pencil. 'V The 
character is made up of indescribable subtilty and intricacy, 
and presents such a varied and many-shaded complexion of 
opposite traits, that I cannot but fancy Shakespeare to have 
delighted in stretching his powers upon it, and perhaps de- 
lighted all the more, forasmuch as it put him to his best 
exercise and proof of skilL^ For the delineation seems, 
throughout, a keen wit-match between the heroine and the 
Poet, which of them shall be the more daringly brilliant and 
divinely wicked, she in her movements, or he in his deHvery 
of them. Yet the very stress of the work only serves, ap- 
parently, to inspire him the more, so that nothing exceeds 
his grasp, nothing eludes it ; his matchless subtilty of in- 
tellect fairly permeating every part of the subject, like a kind 
of diffusive touch. 

Accordingly the heroine as here depicted is an inexhausti- 
ble magazine of coquetry : yet all along in her practice of 
this, and even in part as the motive and inspirer of it, there 
mingles a true and strong attachment, and a warm and just 
admiration of those qualities which ennoble the manly 
character. ( Her love is at once romantic and sensual, blend- 
ing the two extremes of imagination and appetite : she is 
proud, passionate, ambitious, false, revengeful ; abounding 
in wit, talent, tact, and practical sense ; inscrutable in cun- 
ning and in the strategy of inventive passion for attaining 
its ends ; vain, capricious, wilful, generous, and selfish ; im- 
pulsive and deliberate, drifting before her passions and at 
the same time controlling them. Yet all these traits are 
carried on with a quickness and vital energy that never flags 



26 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

nor falters ; and all are fused into perfect consistency by the 
very heat, as it were, of their mutual friction. And this 
strange combination is all woven about with such a versatility 
and potency of enchantment, that there is no resisting her 
nor escaping from her ; none, that is, where the answering 
susceptibilities are in life. All these qualities, moreover, 
seem perfectly innate and spontaneous : nevertheless she is 
fully conscious of them, and has them entirely in hand, 
trained and disciplined to move at the bidding of her art. 
There is, in short, an essential magic about her, that turns 
the very spots and stains of her being into enchantment. 
And, what is perhaps most wonderful of all, while one knows 
that her power over him is but as the spell and fascination 
of a serpent, this knowledge still further disables him from 
shaking it off; nay, the very wonder how she can so 
fascinate becomes itself a new fascination. So that we may 
well say, with Enobarbus, 

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale 
Her infinite variety : other women cloy 
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry 
Where most she satisfies ; for vilest things 
Become themselves in her. 

Of course it is impossible to illustrate in full the points of 
such an ever-changing physiognomy ; for in so frolicsome 
and fugitive an expression, which turns to something new 
each instant, before you can catch it in any one form it has 
passed into another. I can but instance the two extremes ' 
between which her host of moods and tenses is bounded. ' 
The first is when, as Antony is on the eve of quitting Egypt 
for Rome, she so artfully banters and teases him into a 
fume, and then instantly charms it all away with a word of 
queenly eloquence : 



INTRODUCTION. 2/ 

Cleo. Nay, pray you, seek no colour for your going, 
But bid farewell, and go : when you sued staying, 
Then was the time for words ; no going then : 
Eternity was in our lips and eyes, 
Bliss in our brows' bent ; none our parts so poor, 
But was a race of Heaven : they are so still, 
Or thou, the greatest soldier of the world. 
Art turn'd the greatest liar. 

Ant. Quarrel no more, but be prepared to know 
The purposes I bear ; which are, or cease, 
As you shall give the advice. By the fire 
That quickens Nilus' slime, I go from hence 
Thy soldier, servant ; making peace or war, 
As thou affect'st. 

Cleo. Cut my lace, Charmian, come; — 

But let it be : I'm quickly ill, and well : 
So Antony loves. 

Ant. My precious Queen, forbear ; 

And give true evidence to his love, which stands 
An honourable trial. 

Cleo. So Fulvia told me. 

I pr'ythee, turn aside, and weep for her ; 
Then bid adieu to me, and say the tears 
Belong to Egypt : good now, play one scene 
Of excellent dissembling ; and let it look 
Like perfect honour. 

Ant. You'll heat my blood! no more f 

Cleo. You can do better yet ; but this is meetly. 

Ant. Now, by my sword, — 

Cleo. And target. — Still he mends ; 

But this is not the best : look, pr'ythee, Charmian, 
How this Herculean Roman does become 
The carriage of his chafe. 

Ant. I'll leave you, lady. 

Cleo. Courteous lord, one word. 

Sir, you and I must part, — but that's not it : 
Sir, you and I have loved, — but there's not it; 
That you know well : something it is I would, — 
O, my oblivion is a very Antony, 
And I am all forgotten ! 

Ant. But that your royalty 

Holds idleness your subjecf, I should take you 



28 ■ ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

For idleness itself. 

Cleo. 'Tis sweating labour 

To bear such idleness so near the heart 
As Cleopatra this. But, sir, forgive me ; 
Since my becomings kill me, when they do not 
Eye well to you. Your honour calls you hence ; 
Therefore be deaf to my unpitied folly. 
And all the gods go with you ! upon your sword 
Sit laurell'd victory ! and smooth success 
Be strew'd before your feet ! 

The other instance is in the scene at the Monument, just 
as the hero has breathed his last : 

Cleo. Noblest of men, woo't die? 
Hast thou no care of me ? shall I abide 
In this dull world, which in thy absence is 
No better than a sty ? — O, see, my women, 
The crown o' the Earth doth melt. — My lord ! my lord ! — 
O, wither'd is the garland of the war, 
The soldier's pole is fallen ! young boys and girls 
Are level now with men ; the odds is gone, 
And there is nothing left remarkable 
Beneath the visiting Moon. 

Here she sinks down in a swoon ; then, on reviving, and 
hearing her women call out, " Royal Egypt ! Empress ! " 

No more but e'en a woman, and commanded 

By such poor passion as the maid that milks, 

And does the meanest chares. It were for me 

To throw my sceptre at th' injurious gods. 

To tell them that this world did equal theirs 

Till they had stol'n our jewel. All's but nought; 

Patience is sottish, and impatience does 

Become a dog that's mad : then is it sin 

To rush into the secret house of death. 

Ere death dare come to us ? How do you, women ? 

What, what ! good cheer ! Why, how now, Charmian ! 

My noble girls ! Ah, women, women, look, 

Our lamp is spent, it's out ! Good sirs, take heart : 

We'll bury him ; and then, what's brave, what's noble, 



INTRODUCTION. 29 

Let's do it after the high Roman fashion, 

And make death proud to take us. Come, away ! 

This case of that huge spirit now is cold. 

Between these two opposite poles, so to speak, of art and 
passion, there is indeed room for an "infinite variety " of 
transpiration. Yet the whole interspace is filled with the 
most nimble and versatile play of witchery and expression. 
It may be strange that features so diverse and seemingly- 
oppugnant should be made to sit together smoothly and 
naturally in the same character, but so it is. 

In the real greatness of Antony, united as it is with just 
the right kind and degree of weakness, Cleopatra's pride, 
passion, vanity, and ambition have an object that they can 
all meet and draw together upon. To her enthusiastic 
fancy, he is "the demi- Atlas of this Earth, the arm and 
burgonet of men": his heroism in his better hours, his 
eloquence of speech and person at all times, and his 
generous and magnificent dispositions, kindle whatsoever of 
womanhood there is in her nature : and for all these reasons 
she glories the more in knowing that " her beck might from 
the bidding of the gods command him " ; and the dearest 
triumph of her life is, that, while her "man of men" is 
in Rome and she in Egypt, she can still overtake him with 
her sorcery, and pull him back to her side, outwrestling at 
once his duty, his interest, his honour, and even, what is 
stronger than any or all of these, his ambition. 

It is to be noted, however, that while Cleopatra has af 
deep and absorbing passion, yet she never, till all her regal 
hopes are clearly at an end, loses the queen in the lover. 
Her passion grows and lives partly in the faith that Antonyj 
is the man to uphold her state, and " piece her throne withl 
opulent kingdoms." And, whatever may be said of her as ^ 



30 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

a woman, it cannot well be denied that as a queen her 
thoughts are high, and her bearing magnanimous. This 
strong element of policy is the reason why Antony so often 
mistrusts her, as it is also the motive that puts her at last 
to trying her wiles upon Octavius, when she finds herself in 
his power. There she has a hard game to play : that most 
impenetrable of statesmen is indeed proof against her arts ; 
nevertheless he is fairly outcrafted by her; and so her last 
breath of exultation is in addressing the asp at her breast : 

O, couldst thou speak, 
That I might hear thee call great Caesar ass 
Unpolicied ! 

All this, to be sure, was virtually contained in the history 
as Shakespeare found it. But I think he nowhere shows 
more fertility or more felicity of art and invention in so 
ordering the situations and accompaniments as to bring out 
the full sense of the characters. It scarce need be said, that 
the inexpressible fascinations with which he has clothed the 
heroine almost gain for her the same " full supremacy " over 
the reader which she wields over the hero ; insomuch that 
at the close he is ready to exclaim with Octavius over her 
lifeless form. 

She looks like sleep, 
As she would catch another Antony 
In her strong toil of grace. 

As to the moral effect of the delineation, I cannot do 
better than to leave it in the hands of the poet Campbell : 
"Playfully interesting to our fancy as Shakespeare makes 
this enchantress, he keeps us far from a vicious sympathy. 
The asp at her bosom, that lulls its nurse asleep, has no 
poison for our morality. A single glance at the devoted 
and dignified Octavia recalls our homage to virtue ; but 



INTRODUCTION. 3 1 

with delicate skill he withholds the purer woman from 
prominent contact with the wanton Queen, and does not, j 
Hke Dryden, bring the two to a scolding-match." 



Character of Antony. 

Mark Antony is regarded by our best historians as one 
of the most mixed and at the same time one of the least 
artificial characters of antiquity. With the seeds both of 
great virtues and great vices in his nature, he was educated 
into habits of more-than-military frankness under the great 
Julius, in whose school of Epicurean free-thinkers his tastes 
and principles were mainly formed. ^While the master 
lived, his wild and boisterous impulses were measurably awed 
and restrained. But, as he had nothing of the natural just- 
ness and harmony of that stupendous man, so, such external 
restraint being withdrawn, those tastes and principles were 
not long in working out to their legitimate results. Though, 
at a need, he could act the part of a most profound dissem- 
bler, yet his disposition was to be perfectly open, downright, 
and unreserved. Therewithal he had all the ambition of 
the first Caesar, without any of his deep wisdom and policy 
to guide it ; and all his recklessness of prescription too, but 
none of that native rectitude of genius which made it com- 
paratively safe for him to be a law unto himself. Such, in 
brief, appears to be the character of the man as delivered 
in history. 

Antony's leading traits, as Shakespeare renders them, have 
been to some extent involved in what I have said of the 
heroine. He is the same man here as in the play of Julius 
CcBsar, only in a further stage of development: brave and 
magnanimous to a fault, transported with ambition, and 



32 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

somewhat bloated with success ; bold, strong, and reckless 
alike in the good and the bad parts of his composition ; un- 
dergoing a long and hard strugle between the heroism and 
voluptuousness of his nature ; the latter of which, with Cleo- 
patra's unfathomable seductions to stimulate it, at last acquires 
the full sway and mastery of him. His powers are indeed 
great, but all unbalanced. Even when the spells of Egypt 
are woven thick and fast about him, the lingerings of his 
better spirit, together with the stinging sense of his present 
state, arouse him from time to time to high resolutions and 
deeds of noble daring : yet these appear rather as the spasms 
of a dying manhood than the natural and healthy beatings 
of its heart ; the poison of a fevered ambition overmastering 
for a while the subtiler poison of a gorged and pampered 
sensuality. " There's a great spirit gone," he exclaims, on 
hearing of Fulvia's death ; and long afterwards, when disaster 
and self-reproach overtake him, and his faith in the Queen is 
shaken, then the image of Octavia with " her modest eyes 
and still conclusion " reclaims his thoughts, and she is to him 
"a gem of women." But still he cannot unchain his soul 
from the "great fairy" : however, in his fits of despondency, 
he may doubt her fidelity and resent her supposed treachery, 
yet she has but to play her forces upon him in person, and 
her empire is at once re-established. Thus when she, weep- 
ing, comes upon him after the terrible disgrace of Actium : 

Ant. O, whither hast thou led me, Egypt? See, 
How I convey my shame out of thine eyes 
By looking back what I have left behind 
'Stroy'd in dishonour. 

Cieo. O my lord, my lord, 

Forgive my fearful sails ! I little thought 
You would have follow'd. 

Ani. Egypt, thou knew'st too well 



INTRODUCTION, 33 

My heart was to thy rudder tied by th' strings, 
And thou shouldst tow me after. 

And when she further entreats his pardon : 

Fall not a tear, I say ; one of them rates 
All that is won and lost : give me a kiss ; 
Even this repays me. 

Still better, when, some time later, he is in a flush of success, 
and she comes into his presence, glowing with admiration 
of his prowess : 

O, thou day o' the world, 
Chain mine arm'd neck ! leap thou, attire and all, 
Through proof of harness to my heart, and there 
Ride on the pants triumphing. 

Such is the thraldom to which his heart is reduced ; yet it 
stands half excused to us by our own sense of the too potent 
witchcraft that subdues him. We think of him as " the noble 
ruin of her magic " ; and of her magic too, as more an inspir- 
ation than a purpose, so that she can hardly help it. And 
he is himself sensible that under her mighty charms his man- 
hood is thawing away, and thence takes a melancholy fore- 
cast or presentiment of the perdition that is coming upon 
him ; a presentiment that is only bound the closer upon his 
thoughts by his inability to break the spell. The cluster 
and succession of images in which he dimly anticipates his 
own fall is unsurpassed for the union of poetry and pathos : 

Ant. Eros, thou yet behold'st me ? 

Eros. Ay, noble lord. 

Ant. Sometime we see a cloud that's dragonish ; 
A vapour sometime like a bear or lion, 
A tower'd citadel, a pendent rock, 
A forked mountain, or blue promontory 
With trees upon't, that nod unto the world, 
And mock our eyes with air : thou'st seen these signs ; 
They are black vesper's pageants. 



34 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

Eros. Ay, my lord. 

Ant. That which is now a horse, even with a thought 
The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct 
As water is in water. 

Eros. It does, my lord. 

Ant. My good knave Eros, now thy Captain is 
Even such a body : here I am Antony ; 
Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave. 
I made these wars for Egypt ; and the Queen, — 
Whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine ; 
Which, whilst it was mine, had annex'd unto't 
A million more, now lost ; — she, Eros, has 
Pack'd cards with Caesar, and false-play'd my glory 
Unto an enemy's triumph. 
Nay, weep not, gentle Eros ; there is left us 
Ourselves to end ourselves. 

Here we have the great Triumvir's irregular gi-andeur of 
soul melting out its innermost sweets in the eloquence of 
sorrow. 

Antony and Cleopatra seem made for each other : their 
fascination, howsoever begotten, is mutual j and if in the 
passion that draws and holds them together there be noth- 
ing to engage our respect, there is much that compels our 
sympathy. Witness the heroine's strain at the close : 

Give me my robe, put on my crown ; I have 
Immortal longings in me : now no more 
The juice of Egypt's grape shall moist this lip. 
Yare, yare, good Iras; quick! Methinks I hear 
Antony call ; I see him rouse himself 
To praise my noble act. — Husband, I come : 
Now to that name my courage prove my title ! 
I'm fire and air; my other elements 
I give to baser life. 

And when, on seeing Iras fall, she gives this as the reason 
for hastening to overtake her, — 



INTRODUCTION. 35 

If she first meet the curled Antony, 

He'll make demand of her, and spend that kiss 

Which is my Heaven to have, — 

we feel that the poetry of passion can go no further. Our 
reprobation, too, of their life is softened with a just and 
wholesome flow of pity at their death. 



Charmian and Iras. 

Of the minor characters, the Queen's two favourite women, 
Charmian and Iras, especially the former, besides having no 
little interest in themselves, are full of 7-elative significance. 
Their spirited, frolicsome levity and wantonness of thought 
and speech, together with their death-braving constancy to 
their mistress, show the moral and social qualities of the 
atmosphere which Cleopatra creates about her. The dia- 
logue they hold with Alexas, Enobarbus, and the Soothsayer, 
in the second scene, is exceedingly artful ; though not so 
much for what it contains as for what it suggests and infers. 
The intense sexuality of the heroine's thoughts, while it 
abates nothing of her charms in Antony's eyes, since his 
own thoughts are pitched in the same key, would however, 
if directly expressed, take off much of the fascination which 
she exercises and was meant to exercise upon us. And in 
fact we have only two or three hints of it from her mouth, 
though these are indeed charged to the utmost with mean- 
ing. But we have a vivid reflection of it in the talk of her 
nearest attendants, who of course habitually trim their tongues 
in the glass of her private example. Order is thus taken, in 
the outset of the play, that what the Queen's thoughts in 
this respect are made of shall become known to us indi- 
rectly ; her dignity being thus spared, and yet her character 



36 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

discovered : for Shakespeare was by no means ignorant of 
the truth so strongly expressed in the saying of Burke, that 
in certain points " vice itseh" loses half its evil, by losing all 
its grossness." 

Conclusion. 

I must add, that in this play we have for the most part a 
capital instance of dramatic organization ; that is, the parts, 
notwithstanding they are so numerous and varied, all appear 
to know their places, and to understand one another per- 
fectly ; insomuch that it seems impossible to change either 
the form or order of them without impairing their mutual 
intelligence. — Therewithal the impression of pity which the 
play leaves on the mind is very profound, and very whole- 
some too ; and none the less so that it is in behalf of persons 
whose folHes and infatuations have been literally prodigious, 
and whose hyperbolical yet unconscious egotism has nat- 
urally provoked the retributions that crush down upon 
them so sternly. For, in truth, the strengths and weak- 
nesses, the nobihties and absurdities, the venerable and the 
ridiculous of human nature are so mixed and interwoven, 
that our sympathies often strike deepest even there where 
our censures speak loudest : and perhaps, after all, a speech- 
less pity for poor sinners is better than a voluble hellfire. 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



Mark Antony, -i 

OCTAVius C^SAR, \ Triumvirs. 

M. yEMILIUS Lepidus, J 

Sextus Pompeius. 

DOMITIUS Enobarbus, 

Ventidius, 

Eros, 

SCARUS, 

Dercetas, 
Demetrius, 
Philo, 
Mec^nas, 
Agrippa, 
dolabella, 
Proculeius, 
Thyreus, 
Gallus, 

Taurus, Lieutenant-General to Cae- 
sar. 



Friends to 
Antony. 



Friends of Caesar. 



Canidius, Lieutenant - General to 
Antony. 

Menas, ^ 

Menecrates, I Friends of Pompey. 

Varrius, J 

SiLius, an Officer in Ventidius's 
Army. 

Euphronius, an Ambassador from 
Antony to Caesar. 

Alexas, Mardian, Seleucus, and 
Diomedes, Attendants on Cleo- 
patra. 

A Soothsayer. A Clown. 

Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. 
OCTAVIA, Sister to Caesar, and Wife 

to Antony. 
Charmian and I R AS, Attendants on 

Cleopatra. 



Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, and other Attendants. 
Scene. — In several Parts of the Roman Empire. 



ACT I. 

Scene I. — Alexandria. A Room in Cleopatra's Palace. 

Enter Demetrius and Philo. 

Phi. Nay, but this dotage of our general's 
O'erflows the measure : those his goodly eyes, 



38 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT I, 

That o'er the files and musters of the war 

Have glow'd hke plated Mars', now bend, now turn, 

The office and devotion of their view 

Upon a tawny front : his captain's heart. 

Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst 

The buckles on his breast, reneags i all temper, 

And is become the bellows and the fan 

To cool a gipsy's flame. \_Flourish within?^ Look where they 

come : 
Take but good note, and you shall see in him 
The triple ^ pillar of the world transform'd 
Into a wanton's Fool : ^ behold and see. ) 

Enter Antony and Cleopatra, with their Trains ; Eunuchs 
fanning her. 

Cleo. If it be love indeed, tell me how much. 
Ant. There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd. 
Cleo. I'll set a bourn how far to be beloved. 
Ant. Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new 
earth. 

Enter an Attendant. 

Att. News, my good lord, from Rome. 

Ant. Grates me. — The sum. 

Cleo. Nay, hear them,^ Antony : 

1 Reneag is an old word for renounce or refuse. See King Lear, page 
105, note 18. 

2 Triple for third, or one of three ; one of the Triumvirs, or three masters 
of the world. 

3 It seems that the " allowed Fool " was a frequent appendage to persons 
and houses of ill-repute. 

4 News is singular or plural indifferently in Shakespeare. Here it is used 
as both at the same time. — Grates me means it is irksome to me ; grates on 
my disposition. — The sum means, speak it in a word. 



SCENE I. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 39 

Fulvia perchance is angry ; or, who knows 
If the scarce-bearded Caesar have not sent 
His powerful mandate to you, Do this, or this ; 
Take-in ^ that kingdom and enfranchise that; 
Perform^ t, or else we damn thee. 

Ant. How, my love ! 

Cleo. Perchance — nay, and most like — 
You must not stay here longer ; your dismission 
Is come from Caesar ; therefore hear it, Antony. 
Where's Fulvia's process P^ Caesar's I would say? both? — 
Call in the messengers. — As I am Egypt's Queen, 
Thou blushest, Antony ; and that blood of thine 
Is Caesar's homager : else so thy cheek pays shame 
When shrill-tongued Fulvia scolds. — The messengers ! 

Ant. Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch 
' Of the ranged empire '^ fall ! Here is my space. 
Kingdoms are clay : our dungy earth alike 
Feeds beast as man : the nobleness of life 
Is to do thus ; \_Emdracing.'] when such a mutual pair 
And such a twain can do't ; in which I bind, 
On pain of punishment, the world to weet ^ 
We stand up peerless. 

Cleo. Excellent falsehood ! 

Why did he marry Fulvia, and not love her? 
I'll seem the fool I am not ; Antony 

5 Take-in signifies subdue, conquer. See Winter's Tale, page 136, note 60. 

6 Process here means summons. " Lav/yers call that the processe by 
which a man is called into the court, and no more. To serve with processe 
is to cite, to summon." — MiNSHEU. 

7 The ranged empire is the w^//-arranged, well-ordered empire. Shake- 
speare uses the expression again in Coriola?ms : " Bury all, which yet dis- 
tinctly ranges, in heaps and piles of ruins." 

8 To weet is to know. Wit, wite, wise, &c., have the same root. 



40 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT I. 

Will be himself. 

Ant. But stirr'd by Cleopatra.^ 

Now, for the love of Love ^^ and her soft hours, 
Let's not confound the time with conference harsh : 
There's not a minute of our lives should stretch 
Without some pleasure now. What sport to-night ? 

Cleo. Hear the ambassadors. 

Anf. Fie, wrangling Queen ! 

Whom every thing becomes, to chide, to laugh. 
To weep ; whose every passion fully strives 
To make itself, in thee, fair and admired ! 
No messenger but thine ; and all alone 
To-night we'll wander through the streets, and note 
The qualities of people. Come, my Queen ; 
Last night you did desire it. — Speak not to us. 

[^Exeunt Ant. and Cleg, with their Train. 

Dem. Is Caesar with Antonius prized so slight ? 

Phi. Sir, sometimes, when he is not Antony, 
He comes too short of that great property 
Which still should go with Antony. 

Dem. I am full sorry 

That he approves the common liar,ii who 
Thus speaks of him at Rome ; but I will hope 
Of better deeds to-morrow. Rest you happy ! \_Exeunt. 

8 But it will be himself as quickened and inspired by Cleopatra, or with 
her inspiration added to what he is in himself. 

10 For the sake of the goddess of Love. — To confound the time, is to 
consume it, to lose it. See i King Henry IV., page 73, note 10. 

11 The common liar is Fame or Rumour. Approves is evidently here 
used in the sense of makes good, or proves true. Often so. 



SCENE II. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 4I 

Scene II. — The Same. Another Room in the Palace. 
Enter Charmian, Iras, Alexas, and a Soothsayer. 

Char. Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most-any-thing Alexas, 
almost-most absolute Alexas, where's the soothsayer that you 
praised so to the Queen ? O, that I knew this husband, which, 
you say, must charge his horns with garlands ! 

Alex. Soothsayer, — 

Sooth. Your will? 

Char. Is this the man ? — Is't you, sir, that know things ? 

Sooth. In Nature's infinite book of secrecy 
A little I can read. 

Alex. Show him your hand. 

Enter Enobarbus. 

Eno. Bring in the banquet quickly ; wine enough 
Cleopatra's health to drink. 

Char. Good sir, give me good fortune. 

Sooth. I make not, but foresee. 
. Char. Pray, then, foresee me one. 

Sooth. You shall be yet far fairer than you are. 

Char. He means in flesh. 

Iras. No, you shall paint when you are old. 

Char. Wrinkles forbid ! 

Alex. Vex not his prescience ; be attentive. 

Char. Hush! 

Sooth. You shall be more beloving than beloved. 

Char. I had rather heat my liver with drinking.^ 

1 The liver being considered the seat of love, Charmian says she would 
rather heat her liver with drinking than with love's fire. A heated liver was 
supposed to make a pimpled face. 



42 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT I. 

Akx. Nay, hear him. 

Char. Good now,^ some excellent fortune ! Let me be 
married to three kings in a forenoon, and widow them all : 
let me have a child at fifty,^ to whom Herod of Jewry may 
do homage : find me to marry me with Octavius Caesar, and 
companion me with my mistress.'* 

Sooth. You shall outlive the lady whom you serve. 

Char. O excellent ! I love long hfe better than figs. 

Sooth. You've seen and proved a fairer former fortune 
Than that which is to approach. 

Char. Then belike my children shall have no names.^ — 
Nay, come, tell Iras hers. 

Alex. We'll know all our fortunes. 

Eno. Mine, and most of our fortunes, to-night, shall be — 
drunk to bed. 

Iras. There's a palm presages chastity, if nothing else. 

Char. E'en as the o'erflowing Nilus presageth famine. 

Iras. Go, you wild bedfellow, you cannot soothsay. 

Char. Nay, if an oily palm be not a fruitful prognosti- 
cation, I cannot scratch mine ear. — Pr'ythee, tell her but a 
worky-day fortune. 

Sooth. Your fortunes are alike. 

Iras. But how, but how? give me particulars. 

Sooth. I have said. 

Iras. Am I not an inch of fortune better than she ? 

2 Good now was an equivalent to well now. See Ha^nlet, p. 49, note 16. 

3 This is one of Shakespeare's natural touches. Few circumstances are 
more flattering to the fair sex, than breeding at an advanced period of life. 
— Johnson. 

4 That is, make me equal with my mistress. 

5 Charmian has never been married ; and, as her past fortune has been 
better than her future is to be, her children will not know who their father 
is, and so will be nameless. 



SCENE II. ANTON V^ AND CLEOPATRA. 43 

Char. Alexas, come, his fortune, his fortune ! — O, let him 
marry a woman that cannot go, sweet Isis, I beseech thee ! 
and let her die too, and give him a worse ! and let worse 
follow worse, till the worst of all follow him laughing to his 
grave dishonour' d ! Good Isis, hear me this prayer, though 
thou deny me a matter of more weight ; good Isis, I beseech 
thee ! 

Iras. Amen. Dear goddess, hear that prayer of the peo- 
ple ! for, as it is a heart-breaking to see a handsome man 
loose-wived, so it is a deadly sorrow to behold a foul knave 
unabused : therefore, dear Isis, keep decorum, and fortune 
him accordingly ! 

Char. Amen. 

Eno. Hush ! here comes x\ntony. 

Char. Not he j the Queen. 

Enter Cleopatra. 

Cleo. Saw you my lord ? 
Eno. No, lady. 

Cleo. Was he not here ? 

Char. No, madam. 

Cleo. He was disposed to mirth ; but on the sudden 
A Roman thought hath struck him. — Enobarbus, — 
Eno. Madam ? 

Cleo. Seek him, and bring him hither. — Where's Alexas ? 
Alex. Here, at your service. My lord approaches. 
Cleo. We will not look upon him : go with us. \_Exeunt 

Enter Antony with a Messenger and Attendants. 

Mess. Fulvia thy wife first came into the field. 
Ant. Against my brother Lucius? 
Mess. Ay : 



44 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT I. 

But soon that war had end, and the time's state 
Made friends of them, jointing their force 'gainst Caesar ; 
Whose better issue in the war, from Italy, 
Upon the first encounter, drave them. 

Ant. Well, what worst ? 

Mess. The nature of bad news infects the teller. 

Ant. When it concerns the fool or coward. On : 
Things that are past are done with me. 'Tis thus : 
Who tells me true, though in his tale lie death, 
I hear him as he flatter'd. 

Mess. Labienus — 

This is stiff news — hath, with his Parthian force, 
Extended ^ Asia from Euphrates ; 
His conquering banner shook from Syria 
To Lydia and to Ionia j whilst — 

Ant. Antony, thou wouldst say, — 

Mess. O, my lord ! i 

Ant. Speak to me home,"^ mince not the general tongue : 
Name Cleopatra as she's call'd in Rome ; 
Rail thou in Fulvia's phrase ; and taunt my faults 
With such full license as both truth and mahce 
Have power to utter. O, then we bring forth weeds 
When our quick minds lie still ; and our ills told us 
Is as our earing.^ Fare thee well awhile. 

* Extended, here, is seized, taken possession of. 

7 Speak me out fully, thoroughly, or to the quick. So home is often used. 
See Macbeth, page 60, note 26. — " Mince not the general tongue " is " Do not 
palliate, dilute, or disguise the common talk about me." To mince a thing 
is, properly, to cut it up fine, so as to be easily swallowed. See King Henry 

VIII., page 90, note 1, 

8 The proper meaning of quick is living or alive. Here it seems to 
TCiS.2.x\. pregnant, prolific, in which sense it forms an apt and natural epithet 
for soil. And the mind is here compared to a fat and generous soil, which, 



SCENE II. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 45 

Mess. At your noble pleasure. \Exii 

Ant. From Sicyon, ho, the news ! Speak there 1 

1 Att. The man from Sicyon ; is there such an one ? 

2 Att. He stays upon your will. 

Ant. Let him appear. — 

These strong Egyptian fetters I must break, 
Or lose myself in dotage. — 

Enter another Messenger. 

What are you? 

2 Mess. Fulvia thy wife is dead. 

Ant. Where died she ? 

2 Mess. In Sicyon : 
Her length of sickness, with what else more serious 
Importeth thee to know, this bears. [ Gives a letter. 

Ant. Forbear me. \Exit 2 Mess. 

— There's a great spirit gone ! Thus did I desire it : 
What our contempts do often hurl from us. 
We wish it ours again ; the present pleasure, 
By revolution lowering, does become 
The opposite of itself : ^ she's good, being gone ; 
The hand could ^^ pluck her back that shoved her on. 
I must from this enchanting Queen break off : 
Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know, 

if suffered to lie still, if not stirred with the plough, shoots forth weeds ; and 
the telling us plainly our faults is as the earing, that is, the ploughing, to 
make the soil productive of better things. This use of to ear was common 
in the Poet's time. See King Richard 11., page 107, note 24. 

9 The pleasure of to-day, by change of circumstances, often loses all its 
value to us, and becomes to-morrow a pain. The image is of a wheel, 
which revolving, what is at the top to-day is at the bottom to-morrow. 

i"^ Antony is referring to his own hand : " My hand would now pluck her 
back." The Poet has many instances of could and would used indifferently. 



46 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT I. 

My idleness doth hatch. — Ho, Enobarbus ! 
Re-etiter Enobarbus. 

Eno. What's your pleasure, sir? 

Ant. I must with haste from hence. 

Eno. Why, then we kill all our women : we see how 
mortal an unkindness is to them ; if they suffer our depar- 
ture, death's the word. 
C Ant. I must be gone. 

Eno. Under a compelling occasion, let women die : it 
were pity to cast them away for nothing ; though, between 
them and a great cause, they should be esteemed nothing. 
Cleopatra, catching but the least noise of this, dies instantly ; 
I have seen her die twenty times upon far poorer moment : ^^ 
I do think there is mettle in death, which commits some 
loving act upon her, she hath such a celerity in dying. 

Ant. She is cunning past man's thought. 

Eno. Alack, sir, no ; her passions are made of nothing 
but the finest part of pure love. We cannot call her winds 
and waters sighs and tears ; they are greater storms and 
tempests than almanacs can report : this cannot be cunning 
in her ; if it be, she makes a shower of rain as well as Jove.^^ 
\ Ant. Would I had never seen her ! 

Eno. O, sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful piece 
of work ; which not to have been bless'd withal would have) 
discredited your travel. ^ 

Ant. Fulvia is dead. 

Eno. Sir ? 

Ant. Fulvia is dead. 

11 " Far poorer moment " is much less cause. 

12 This cannot be a matter of study and art with her, or any thing got up 
for effect ; if it be, she's a match for old Jupiter himself. 



SCENE II. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 47 

Eno. Fulvia ! 

Ant Dead. 

Eno. Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice. When 
it pleaseth their deities to take the wife of a man from him, 
it shows to man the tailors of the Earth j^^ comforting 
therein, that when old robes are worn out, there are members 
to make new. If there were no more women but Fulvia, 
then had you indeed a cut, and the case to be lamented : 
this grief is crown'd with consolation ; your old smock brings 
forth a new petticoat : and, indeed, the tears live in an 
onion that should water this sorrow. 

Ant. The business she hath broached in the State 
Cannot endure my absence. 

Eno. And the business you have broach'd here cannot be 
without you ; especially that of Cleopatra's, which wholly 
depends on your abode. 

Ant. No more light answers. Let our officers 
Have notice what we purpose. I shall break 
The cause of our expedience i'* to the Queen, 
And get her leave to part. For not alone 
The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches, 
Do strongly speak to us ; but the letters too 
Of many our contriving friends ^^ in Rome 

13 Shows them to him in the sense, probably, of sending him to them, or 
putting him upon using their service. The shrewd humourist means to 
insinuate, I take it, that a wife of long standing is something like an outworn 
dress ; and that a change every little while in that behalf is as pleasant as 
having a new suit of clothes. Was the naughty wag an advocate of free- 
love ? Antony winces under the cutting irony of his talk. 

14 Expedience for expedition, and in the sense of haste or speed. See King 
Richard II., page 8o, note 38. — In the next line,/ar/ is for depart; a fre- 
quent usage. 

15 Sidney Walker thinks that contriving is here used in the Latin sense 
of sojourning ; canter entes tempus. Perhaps so. 



48 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT I. 

Petition us at home. Sextus Pompeius 

Hath given the dare to Csesar, and commands 

The empire of the sea : our sHppery people — 

Whose love is never link'd to the deserver 

Till his deserts are past — begin to throw 

Pompey the Great, and all his dignities, 

Upon his son ; ^^ who, high in name and power, 

Higher than both in blood and life, stands up 

For the main soldier : whose quality, going on. 

The sides o' the world may danger. Much is breeding^ 

Which, like the courser's hair, hath yet but life, 

And not a serpent's poison, i''' Say, our pleasure, 

To such whose place is under us, requires 

Our quick remove from hence. ^^ 

Eno. I shall do't. \Exeunt. 

Scene III. — Hie Same. Another Room in the Palace. 

^«/^r Cleopatra, Charmian, Iras, ^^x^Alexas. 

Cleo. Where is he? 

Char. I did not see him since. 

Cleo. See where he is, who's with him, what he does : 

16 Begin to transfer the name or title of Pompey the Great and all his 
honours to his son. 

17 An allusion to the ancient superstition, that a horse-hair laid in water 
would turn to a poisonous serpent. I remember very well when the same 
thing was believed by children in Vermont : as it also was, that if one swal- 
lowed a hair, it would turn into a snake in the stomach. 

18 The proper construction, according to the sense, is, " Say, to such 
whose place is under us, our pleasure requires our quick remove from 
hence." Antony thus ostensibly puts his departure upon the ground of 
pleasure, in order to keep his subordinates in the dark as to the urgent pub- 
lic reasons of his going. 



SCENE III. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 49 

I did not send you.^ If you find him sad, 

Say I am dancing ; if in mirth, report 

That I am sudden sick : quick, and return. \_Exif Aijekas. 

Char. Madam, methinks, if you did love him dearly. 
You do not hold the method to enforce 
The like from him. 

Cieo. What should I do, I do not? 

Char. In each thing give him way, cross him in nothing. 

Cleo. Thou teachest like a fool ; the way to lose him. 

Char. Tempt him not so too far ; I wish, forbear : 
In time we hate that which we often fear. 
But here comes Antony. 

Cieo. I'm sick and sullen. 

Enter Antony. 

Ant. I'm sorry to give breathing to my purpose, — 

Cleo. Help me away, dear Charmian ; I shall fall : 
It cannot be thus long, the sides of nature 
Will not sustain it. 

Ant. Now, my dearest Queen, — 

Cleo. Pray you, stand further from me. 

Ant. What's the matter? 

Cleo. I know, by that same eye, there's some good news. 
What says the married woman ? You may go : 
Would she had never given you leave to come ! 
Let her not say 'tis I that keep you here ; 
I have no power upon you ; hers you are. " 

Ant. The gods best know, — 

Cleo. O, never was there queen 

So mightily betray'd ! yet at the first 

1 Meaning, go as of your own motion ; make as if\ did not send yoi' 



50 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT I. 

I saw the treasons planted. 

Ant Cleopatra, — 

Cleo. Why should I think you can be mine and true, 
Though you in swearing shake the throned gods, 
Who have been false to Fulvia ? Riotous madness. 
To be entangled with those mouth-made vows 
Which break themselves in swearing ! 

Ant. Most sweet Queen, — 

Cleo. Nay, pray you, seek no colour for your going. 
But bid farewell, and go : when you sued staying, 
Then was the time for words ; no going then : 
Eternity was in our lips and eyes. 
Bliss in our brows' bent ; ^ none our parts so poor, 
But was a race of Heaven : ^ they are so still. 
Or thou, the greatest soldier of the world. 
Art turn'd the greatest liar. 

Ant. How now, lady ! 

Cleo. I would I had thy inches ; thou shouldst know 
There were a heart in Egypt. 

Ant. Hear me. Queen : 

The strong necessity of time commands 
Our services awhile ; but my full heart 
Remains in use^ with you. Our Italy 
Shines o'er with civil swords : Sextus Pompeius 



2 The bending, curvature, or arching of our brows. Arched eyebrows 
were a prominent item of beauty in man or woman. So in The Merry 
Wives, iii. 3 : " Thou hast the right arched beauty of the brow," &c. Also in 
All's Well, i. I : " To sit and draw his arched brows, his hawking eye, his 
curls, in our heart's table." 

3 But was of a heavenly stock or origin ; divine or angelic. 

■* Remains in pledge. The use of a thing is the possession or enjoyment 
of it. So in The Merchant, iv. i : " I am content, so he will let me have the 
other half in use'' 



SCENE III. 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 5 1 



Makes his approaches to the port ^ of Rome. 

Equahty of two domestic powers 

Breed scrupulous faction : ^ the hated, grown to strength, 

Are newly grown to love : the condemn'd Pompey 

Rich in his father's honour, creeps apace 

Into the hearts of such as have not thrived 

Upon the present state, whose numbers threaten ; 

And quietness, grown sick of rest, would purge 

By any desperate change : my more particular. 

And that which most with you should safe my going,^ 

Is Fulvia's death. 

Cleo. Though age from folly could not give me free- 
dom, 
It does from childishness : can Fulvia die?^ 

Ant. She's dead, my Queen : 
Look here, and, at thy sovereign leisure, read 
The garboils ^ she awaked ; at the last, best : 
See when and where she died. 

Cleo. O most false love ! 

Where be the sacred vials thou shouldst fill 



5 That is, the gate of Rome. Port was frequently used so. 

6 Breed is an instance of the verb agreeing with the nearest substantive, 
powers, instead of with the proper subject, equality. See Hamlet, page 57, 
note 12. — I am not clear as to the precise meaning or application of scru- 
pulous here. The radical meaning of the Latin scrupulosus is full of small, 
sharp or pointed sto?ies. Hence an epithet of discussion or investigation, 
and in the sense of exact or precise. So that the meaning in the text ap- 
pears to be, thatethe opposing parties were rigidly sifting each other's claims. 

'' Make my going safe for you, or so far as you are concerned. 

8 Cleopatra means, " Though age could not exempt me from folly, at 
least it frees me from a childish and ready belief of every assertion. Is it 
possible that Fulvia is dead ? I cannot believe it." 

9 Garboil was often used for tumult or commotion. It occurs frequently 
in North's Plutarch. 



52 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT I. 

With sorrowful water ?i^ Now I see, I see, 
In Fulvia's death, how mine received shall be. 

Ant. Quarrel no more, but be prepared to know 
The purposes I bear ; which are, or cease, 
As you shall give the advice. By the fire 
That quickens Nilus' sHme, I go from hence 
Thy soldier, servant ; making peace or war 
As thou affect'st. 

Cko. Cut my lace, Charmian, come ; — 

But let it be : I'm quickly ill, and well : 
So Antony loves. ^^ 

Anf. My precious Queen, forbear ; 

And give true evidence to his love, which stands 
An honourable trial. ^^ 

Cko. So Fulvia told me. 

I pr'ythee, turn aside, and weep for her ; 
Then bid adieu to me, and say the tears 
Belong to Egypt : ^^ good now, play one scene 
Of excellent dissembling ; and let it look 
Like perfect honour. 

Anf. You'll heat my blood ! no more ! 

Cko. You can do better yet ; but this is meetly.^^ 

10 Alluding to the lachrymatory vials filled with tears, which the Romans 
placed in the tomb of a departed friend. 

11 That is, suck is Antony's love ; as fickle as my health ; as quickly hot 
and cold, as I am sick and well. Accordingly he takes the words as a 
reproach, as appears from his meeting them with a remonstrance. The 
passage has sometimes been greatly misunderstood. 

12 Evidence, here, is testimony. Antony has in thought a court of justice, 
where his love is arraigned or put on trial ; and he implies that Cleopatra 
has borne false witness against it. 

13 To me, the Queen of Egypt. — Good now, again, for well now. 

14 Exquisite banter ! The meaning is, you can do better acting than this, 
though this is pretty fair. 



SCENE III. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 53 

Ant Now, by my sword, — 

Cleo. And target. — Still he mends ; 

But this is not the best : look, pr'ythee, Charmian, 
How this Herculean Roman does become 
The carriage of his chafe. ^^ 

Ant I'll leave you, lady. 

Cleo. Courteous lord, one word. 

Sir, you and I must part, — but that's not it : 
Sir, you and I have loved, — but there's not it ; 
That you know well : something it is I would, — 
O, my oblivion is a very Antony, 
And I am all forgotten.i^ 

Ant But that your royalty 

Holds idleness your subject, I should take you 
For idleness itself. ^^ 

Cleo. 'Tis sweating labour 

To bear such idleness so near the heart 
As Cleopatra this. But, sir, forgive me ; 
Since my becomings kill me, when they do not 
Eye well to you.^^ Your honour calls you hence ; 

15 This is obscure. But Cleopatra here assumes that Antony is but 
playing a part ; that his passion is put on for effect. So, if the text be right, 
the meaning, I think, must be, " look how well he carries out the semblance 
or make-believe of being chafed at my words." Antony derived his lineage 
and that of his^^wj, or clan, the Antonian, from Anton, a son of Hercules; 
hence the epithet Herculean. See Critical Notes. 

16 Oblivion is used for forgetfiibiess. She means, apparently, that her 
memory is as treacherous or deceitful as Antony ; and he is so treacherous 
that she is all forgotten by him. 

17 Idleness here means idle or sportive and unmeaning talk. And there is 
an antithesis between royalty and subject. So that the sense is, " But that 
you are queen over your passion for idle discourse, and can command it as 
your subject, assuming it and laying it aside when you choose, I should 
think you the very genius of idleness itself." 

18 Since even the things that become me most are as death to me, if they 
do not endear me to you, or do not appear well in your sight. 



54 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT I. 

Therefore be deaf to my unpitied folly, 

And all the gods go with you ! upon your sword 

Sit laurell'd victory ! and smooth success 

Be strew'd before your feet ! 

Ant, Let us go. Come ; 

Our separation so abides, and flies. 
That thou, residing here, go'st yet with me. 
And I, hence fleeting, here remain with thee.^^ 
Away ! \_Exeunt. 

Scene IV. — Rome. An Apartment in Cesar's House. 
Enter Octavius C^sar, Lepidus, and Attendants. 

Cces. You may see, Lepidus, and henceforth know, 

[ Giving him a letter- 
It is not Caesar's natural vice to hate 
Our great competitor. i From Alexandria 
This is the news : He fishes, drinks, and wastes 
The lamps of night in revel ; is not more manlike 
Than Cleopatra, nor the Queen of Ptolemy 
More womanly than he ; hardly gave audience, or 
Vouchsafed to think he had partners : you shall find there 
A man who is the abstract of all faults 
That all men follow. 

Lep. I must not think there are 

Evils enough to darken all his goodness : 
His faults, in him, seem as the spots of heaven, 

19 A specimen of language that may well put grammar to a nonplus ; but 
it may be translated something thus : " Our union is of such a nature, and 
stands so firm, that in our separation you, remaining here, still go hence 
with me, and I, flying hence, still remain here with you." 

1 Competitor was often used in the sense of colleague or confederate. 



SCENE IV. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 55 

More fiery by night's blackness ; ^ hereditary, 
Rather than purchased ; ^ what he cannot change, 
Than what he chooses. 

Cces. You're too indulgent. Let us grant, it is not 
Amiss to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy ; 
To give a kingdom for a mirth ; to sit 
And keep the turn of tippling with a slave ; 
To reel the streets at noon, and stand the buffet 
With knaves that smell of sweat : say this becomes him, — 
As his composure must be rare indeed 
Whom these things cannot blemish, — yet must Antony 
No way excuse his soils, when we do bear 
So great weight in his lightness.^ If he fill'd 
His vacancy with his voluptuousness. 
Full surfeits, and the dryness of his bones, 
Call on him for't : ^ but to confound such time. 
That drums him from his sport, and speaks as loud 
As his own state and ours ! They're to be chid 
As we rate boys, who,^ being mature in knowledge, 
Pawn their experience to their present pleasure, 
And so rebel to judgment. 

Enter a Messenger. 

2 As the darkness of night sets off the stars of heaven, so the splendour 
of Antony's virtues makes his faults seem greater than they are. So in 
Hamlet, v. 2 : " In my ignorance your skill shall, like a star i' the darkest 
night, stick fiery off indeed." 

3 Purchased in the sense of acquired. Perhaps Shakespeare meant to 
imply the sense of being acquired wrongfully or by evil ways. See King 
Henry the Fifth, page 87, note 14. 

4 His levity throws so much weight on us. 

5 Demand payment of him for it ; or, it may be, visit him for it. 

6 Of course who refers to they, not to boys. Knowledge and experience 
are here used as equivalent terms. See Critical Notes. 



56 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT I. 

Lep. Here's more news. 

Mess. Thy biddings have been done ; and every hour, 
Most noble Caesar, shalt thou have report 
How 'tis abroad. Pompey is strong at sea ; 
And it appears he is beloved of those 
That only have fear'd Caesar : "^ to the ports 
The discontents ^ repair, and men's reports 
Give him much wrong' d. 
^— C(ES. I should have known no less : 

It hath been taught us from the primal state, 
That he which is was wish'd until he were ; 
And the ebb'd man, ne'er loved till not worth love, 
Comes dear'd by being lack'd. This common body, 
Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream. 
Goes to and back, lacqueying the varying tide, 
\ To rot itself with motion. 

Mess. Caesar, I bring thee word, 

Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates. 
Make the sea serve them, which they ear ^ and wound 
With keels of every kind : many hot inroads 
They make in Italy ; the borders maritime 
Lack blood to think on't, and flush youth revolt : ^^ 
No vessel can peep forth, but 'tis as soon 
Taken as seen ; for Pompey's name strikes more 
Than could his war resisted. 

Cces. Antony, 

■^ Those whomy^ar, not love, made Caesar's friends. 

^Discontents for malcontents. See i Henry IV., page 169, note 9. — 
Ports, here, is harbours ; from the Latin partus ; as port, in the sense of 
gate, is from porta. 

9 Ear ior plough has occurred before. See page 44, note 8. 

10 To lack blood is to turn pale. Flush youth is youth ripened to man<' 
hood ; youth whose blood is at the flow. 



SCENE IV. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 57 

Leave thy lascivious wassails ! ii When thou once 

Wast beaten from Modena, where thou slew'st 

Hirtius and Pansa, Consuls, at thy heel 

Did famine follow ; whom thou fought'st against, 

Though daintily brought up, with patience more 

Than savages could suffer : thou didst drink 

The stale of horses, and the gilded puddle 

Which beasts would cough at : thy palate then did deign 

The roughest berry on the rudest hedge ; 

Yea, like the stag, when snow the pasture sheets. 

The barks of trees thou browsed'st ; on the Alps 

It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh. 

Which some did die to look on : ^^ and all this — 

It wounds thine honour that I speak it now — 

Was borne so like a soldier, that thy cheek 

So much as lank'd not. 

Lep. It is pity of him. 

C(ES. Let his shames quickly 
Drive him to Rome : 'tis time we twain 
Did show ourselves i' the field ; and to that end 
Assemble we immediate council : Pompey 
Thrives in our idleness. 

Lep, To-morrow, Caesar, 

I shall be furnish'd to inform you rightly 
Both what by sea and land I can be able 
To front this present time. 

Cces. Till which encounter, 



11 Wassail was used for any kind of revelry, rioting, or debauchery; 
though its primitive use had reference only to the drinking of healths. See 
Hamlet, page 75, note 2. 

12 To look is the gerundial infinitive, and so is equivalent to with^ from, 
or by looking. See Julius Ccesar, page 137, note 2. 



$8 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT I. 

It is my business too. Farewell. 

Lep. Farewell, my lord ; what you shall know meantime 
Of stirs abroad, I shall beseech you, sir, 
To let me be partaker. 

Cms. Doubt not, sir ; 

I know it for my bond.i^ [^Exeunt 

Scene V. — Alexandria. A Room in Cleopatra's Palace, 
Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Iras, and Mardian. 

Cleo. Charmian, — 

Char. Madam ? 

Cleo, Ha, ha ! — 
Give me to drink mandragora.i 

Char. Why, madam? 

Cleo. That I might sleep out this great gap of time 
My Antony is away. 

Char. You think of him too much. 

Cleo. O, 'tis treason ! 

Char. Madam, I trust, not so. 

Cleo. Thou, eunuch Mardian ! 

Mar. What's your Highness' pleasure? 

Cleo. Not now to hear thee sing. 'Tis well for thee, 
Thy freer thoughts may not fly forth of Egypt. 
Hast thou affections ? 

Mar. Yes, gracious madam. 

Cleo. O Charmian, 

13 Bond or band was used for any thing that binds or obliges. Here it 
means bounden duty. See King Richard II., page 38, note 2. 

1 A plant, of which the infusion was supposed to induce sleep. So in 
Adlington's translation of The Golden Ass of Apuleius : " I gave him no 
poyson, but a doling drink of mandragoras, which is of such force, that it 
will cause any man to sleepe as though he were dead." 



SCENE V. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 59 

Where think'st thou he is now ? Stands he, or sits he ? 

Or does he walk ? or is he on his horse ? 

O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony ! 

Do bravely, horse ! for wott'st thou whom thou movest? 

The demi- Atlas of this Earth, the arm 

And burgonet^ of men. He's speaking now, 

Or murmuring, Where's my serpefit of old Nile ? 

For so he calls me. Now I feed myself 

With most delicious poison : Think on me. 

That am with Phoebus' amorous pinches black, 

And wrinkled deep in time ? Broad-fronted Csesar, 

When thou wast here above the ground, I was 

A morsel for a monarch ; and great Pompey 

Would stand, and make his eyes grow in my brow ; 

There would he anchor his aspect, and die 

With looking on his life. 

Enler Alexas. 

Alex. Sovereign of Egypt, hail ! 

Cleo. How much unlike art thou Mark Antony ! 
Yet, coming from him, that great medicine hath 
With his tinct gilded thee.^ 
How goes it with my brave Mark Antony? 

Alex. Last thing he did, dear Queen, 
He kiss'd — the last of many doubled kisses — 
This orient pearl : his speech sticks in my heart. 

Cleo. Mine ear must pluck it thence. 

Alex. Good friend, quoth he, 

2 A burgonet is a helmet, a head-piece. 

3 Alluding to the philosopher's stone, which by its touch converts base 
metal into gold. The alchemists call the matter, whatever it be, by which 
they perform transmutation, a medicine. Medicine was sometimes used^ 
also, iox physician or mediciner ; and Walker thinks it is so used here. 



60 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, ACT J 

Say, the fir m^ Roman to great Egypt sends 

This treasure of an oyster ; at whose foot. 

To mend the petty present, I will piece 

Her opulent throne with kingdoms ; all the East, 

Say thou, shall call her mistress. So he nodded, 

And soberly did mount an arm-girt steed,^ 

Who neigh'd so high, that what I would have spoke 

Was beastly dumb'd by him. 

Cleo. What, was he sad or merry? 

Alex, Like to the time o' the year between th' extremes 
Of hot and cold, he was nor sad nor merry. 

Cleo. O well-divided disposition ! — Note him. 
Note him, good Charmian, 'tis the man ; but note him : 
He was not sad, for he would shine on those 
That make their looks by his ; he was not merry, 
Which seem'd to tell them his remembrance lay 
In Egypt with his joy ; but between both : 
O heavenly mingle ! — Be'st thou sad or merry. 
The violence of either thee becomes. 
So does it no man else. — Mett'st thou my posts ? 

Alex. Ay, madam, twenty several messengers : 
Why do you send so thick ?^ 

Cleo. Who's born that day 

When I forget to send to Antony 



4 Firm in a relative sense ; Antony meaning that his heart remains con- 
stant and true to Cleopatra. 

5 In the days of chivalry, war-horses were sometimes girded with armour 
as well as the men who rode them. — In the second line below, " beastly 
dumb'd " means in the manner of a beast, that is, by inarticulate noise. The 
eager steed roared so loud in his proper note, that Alexas could not hear 
himself speak. 

6 That is, so fast, or in such rapid succession. This use oi thick occurs 
repeatedly. See 2 Henry the Fourth, page 94, note i. 



SCErrE I. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 6 1 

Shall die a beggar. — Ink and paper, Charmian. — 
Welcome, my good Alexas. — Did I, Charmian, 
Ever love Caesar so ? 

Char. O that brave Cssar ! 

Cleo. Be choked with such another emphasis ! 
Say, the brave Antony. 

Char. The valiant Caesar ! 

Cleo. By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth, 
If thou with Caesar paragon"'' again 
My man of men. 

Char. By your most gracious pardon, 

I sing but after you. 

Cleo. My salad days. 

When I was green in judgment : cold in blood, 
To say as I said then ! But, come, away ; 
Get me ink and paper : 
He shall have every day a several greeting. 
Or I'll unpeople Egypt. [Exeunt. 



ACT II. 

Scene I. — Messina. A Room in Pompey's House, 

Enter Pompey, Menecrates, and Menas. 

Pom. If the great gods be just, they shall ^ assist 
The deeds of justest men. 

7 Paragon, substantive, is, properly, a model, or a standard of comparison^ 
and is of course supposed to excel all that are compared to it. This is what 
Antony now is to Cleopatra. So to paragon is to compare ; and here it is 
to do this in such a way as to imply inferiority in the object compared. 

1 Shall for "mill ; the two being often used indiscriminately. 



62 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT U 

Mene. Know, worthy Pompey, 

That what they do delay, they not deny. 

Pom. Whiles we are suitors to their throne, decays 
The thing we sue for. 

Mene. We, ignorant of ourselves, 

Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers 
Deny us for our good ; so find we profit 
By losing of our prayers. 

Pom. I shall do well : 

The people love me, and the sea is mine ; 
My power's a crescent,^ and my auguring hope 
Says it will come to th' full. Mark Antony 
In Egypt sits at dinner, and will make 
No wars without doors : Caesar gets money where 
He loses hearts : Lepidus flatters both, 
Of both is flatter'd ; but he neither loves, 
Nor either cares for him. 

Men. Caesar and Lepidus 

Are in the field ; a mighty strength they carry. 

Pom. Where have you this? 'tis false. 

Men. From Silvius, sir. 

Pom. He dreams : I know they are in Rome together, 
Looking for Antony. But all the charms of love. 
Salt Cleopatra, soften thy waned lip ! ^ 
Let witchcraft join with beauty, lust with both ! 
Tie up the hbertine in a field of feasts, 
Keep his brain fuming ; Epicurean cooks 



2 Pompey here speaks under the image of the Moon when crescent, 
" My moon of power is new and growing" &c. 

3 " Waned lip " is pale ox faint-coloured lip ; a lip that shows age or sick- 
ness ; waned being a participle of the verb wane. — Salt here means lustful. 
So in Othello, ii. i : " His salt and most hidden-loose affection," 



SCENE I. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 63 

Sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite ; 

That sleep and feeding may prorogue ^ his honour 

Even till a Lethe'd dukiess ! — 

Enter Varrius. 

How now, Varrius ! 

Var. This is most certain that I shall deliver : 
Mark Antony is every hour in Rome 
Expected : since he went from Egypt 'tis 
A space for further travel.^ 

Pom. I could have given less matter 

A better ear. — Menas, I did not think 
This amorous surfeiter would have donn'd his helm 
For such a petty war : his soldiership 
Is twice the other twain. But let us rear 
The higher our opinion, that our stirring 
Can from the lap of Egypt's widow ^ pluck 
The ne'er-lust-wearied Antony. 

Men. I cannot hope '^ 

Caesar and Antony shall well greet together : 
His wife that's dead did trespasses to Caesar ; 
His brother warr'd upon him ; although, I think, 
Not moved by Antony. 

Pom. I know not, Menas, 

How lesser enmities may give way to greater. 

4 To prorogue is \o put off, to postpone. Here the meaning seems to be, 
" keep his sense of honour from being roused, till it sinks into a death-like 
lethargy." Till, in the next line, has the force of /^/ an old usage. 

5 Since he left Egypt, there has been time enough for a longer journey. 

6 To compose the tearing factions in the Egyptian Court, Cleopatra, at 
the instance of Julius Caesar, had been married to her brother Ptolemy, 
who, not long after, was drowned. 

"^ Hope was sometimes used in the sense of expect. 



64 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT II. 

Were't not that we stand up against them all, 

'Twere pregnant they should square ^ between themselves ; 

For they have entertained cause enough 

To draw their swords : but how the fear of us 

May cement their divisions, and bind up 

The petty difference, we yet not know. 

Be't as our gods will have't ! It only stands 

Our lives upon ^ to use our strongest hands. 

Gome, Menas. [^Exeunt 



Scene II. — Rome. A Room in the House of Lepidus. 
Enter Enobarbus and Lepidus. 

Lip. Good Enobarbus, 'tis a worthy deed, 
And shall become you well, t' entreat your captain 
To soft and gentle speech. 

Eno. I shall entreat him 

To answer like himself : if Gsesar move him. 
Let Antony look over Caesar's head, 
And speak as loud as Mars. By Jupiter, 
Were I the wearer of Antonius' beard, 

8 Should is here used for would. See Tempest, page 83, note 30. — To 
square is an old word for to quarrel; probably from the posture or attitude 
of a pugilist in squaring up to his antagonist. Shakespeare has the word 
several times in that sense, as he also has squarer for quarreller. Likewise 
in one of Leicester's Letters : " How thinges have bredd this lytle square 
between these two so well affected princes, I cannot tell." — Pregnant, here, 
is evident, full of proof in itself. Repeatedly so. 

9 " It stands us upon " is an old phrase equivalent to the one now in use, 
" It stands us in hand'.' The phrase occurs repeatedly in North's Plutarch. 
Here the meaning seems to be, " Our lives depend upon our using" &c. ; or, 
" it is as much as our lives are worth, that we use." 



SCENE ir. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 6$ 

I would not shave 't to-day. ^ 

Lep. 'Tis not a time 

For private stomaching.^ 

Eno. Every time 

Serves for the matter that is then born in't. 

Lep. But small to greater matters must give way. 

Eno. Not if the small come first. 

Lep. Your speech is passion \ 

But, pray you, stir no embers up. Here comes 
The noble Antony. 

Enter Antony and Ventidius. 

Eno. And, yonder, Caesar. 

Enter C^sar, Mec^nas, and Agrippa. 

Ant. If we compose well^ here, to Parthia : 
Hark ye, Ventidius. 

Cces. I do not know, 

Mecsenas ; ask Agrippa. 

Lep. Noble friends. 

That which combined us was most great, and let not 
A leaner action rend us. What's amiss, 
May it be gently heard : when we debate 
Our trivial difference loud, we do commit 

1 That is, " I would meet him without any special making of my toilet, or 
any ceremony of respect." So, later in this scene, Enobarbus describes 
Antony as " being barber d ten tijnes o'er," when he first went to meet Cleo- 
patra. 

2 Stomaching, here, is resentment, or bearing a grudge. Shakespeare 
repeatedly has the noun stomach in the same sense. See King Richard 
the Second, page 38, note 6. 

3 If we come to a harmonious composition or agreement. 



66 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT II, 

Murder in healing wounds : then, noble partners, — 
The rather, for I earnestly beseech, — 
Touch you the sourest points with sweetest terms. 
Nor curstness ^ grow to th' matter. 

Ant 'Tis spoken well. 

Were we before our armies, and to fight, 
I should do thus. 

C^s. Welcome to Rome. 

Afzf. Thank you. 

Ct^s. Sit. 

Anf. Sit, sir. 

Cces. Nay, then — 

A7tf. I learn, you take things ill which are not so. 
Or, being, concern you not. 

CcBs. I must be laugh'd at. 

If, or for nothing or a little, I 
Should say myself offended, and with you 
Chiefly i' the world ; more laugh'd at, that I should 
Once name you derogately, when to sound your name 
It not concern'd me. 

Ant My being in Egypt, Caesar, 

What was't to you ? 

Ciss. No more than my residing here at Rome 
Might be to you in Egypt : yet, if you there 
Did practise on my state, your being in Egypt 
Might be my question. 

Ant How intend you, practised? 

Cess. You may be pleased to catch at mine intent 
By what did here befall me. Your wife and brother 
Made wars upon me ; and their contestation 

4 Curstness is scolding, lingual spite. Shakespeare uses the adjective 
curst to denote a scold, a vixen, or termagant. 



SCENE II. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 6/ 

Was theme for you, you were the word of war.^ 

Ant. You do mistake, your business ; my brother never 

Did urge me in his act : ^ I did inquire it ; 

And have my learning from some true reports,''' 

That drew their swords with you. Did he not rather 

Discredit my authority with yours, 

And make the wars alike against my stomach, 

Having alike your cause ? Of this my letters 

Before did satisfy you. If you'll patch a quarrel, 

As matter whole you lack to make it with, 

It must not be with this.^ 

Cces. You praise yourself 

By laying defects of judgment to me ; but 

You patch'd up your excuse. 

Ant. Not so, not so ; 

I know you could not lack, I am certain on't, 

Very necessity of this thought,^ that I, 

Your partner in the cause 'gainst which he fought, 

Could not with graceful ^^ eyes attend those wars 

5 The meaning is, You were the theme or subject for which your wife and 
brother made their contestation ; you were the word of war. 

6 Never urged my name as a pretence for the war. 

7 Reports for reporters ; the same as the Poet uses trumpet for trumpeter , 
SLudJi/e ioxfifer. See The Merchant, page ii8, note 5. 

8 The meaning is, " If you will make out a cause of quarrel by patching 
together little bits of offence, since you have not a piece of whole cloth big 
enough for that purpose, you must do it with other matter than this, as in 
this there is not the least bit of offence." 

9 " Very necessity of this thought " means, apparently, this truly inevitable 
thought. So the Poet repeatedly uses necessary for natural or unavoidable. 
See Hamlet, page 141, note 28. In like manner, he has such phrases as 
shady stealth for stealing shadow. 

10 Graceful for gracious or favourable ; these being among the many 
words of common origin that had not become fully differentiated in the 
Poet's time. — Fronted is opposed or confronted. 



68 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT 11. 

Which fronted mine own peace. As for my wife, 
I would you had her spirit in such another : 
The third o' the world is yours ; which with a snaffle 
You may pace easy, but not such a wife. 

Eno. Would we had all such wives, that the men might 
go to wars with the women ! ^^ 

Ant. So much uncurbable, her garboils, Caesar, 
Made out of her impatience, — which not wanted 
Shrewdness of pohcy too, — I grieving grant 
Did you too much disquiet : for that you must 
But say, I could not help it. 

Cces. I wrote to you 

When rioting in Alexandria ; you 
Did pocket up my letters, and with taunts 
Did gibe my missive ^^ out of audience. 

Ant. Sir, 

He fell upon me ere admitted : then 
Three kings I had newly feasted, and did want 
Of what I was i' the morning : but next day 
I told him of myself ; ^^ which was as much 
As to have ask'd him pardon. Let this fellow 
Be nothing of our strife ; if we contend. 
Out of our question wipe him. 

Cces. You have broken 

The article of your oath ; which you shall never 
Have tongue to charge me with. 

11 I am uncertain whether this means that the men might go to war in 
company with the women, or go to war against them. 

12 Missive for messenger. So in Macbeth, i. $ ; " Whilst I stood rapt in 
the wonder of it, came missives from the King, who all-hail'd me," &c. 

13 " I told him this of my own accord; or volunteered this information 
about myself." Such an implied apology is just what good manners re- 
quire. 



SCENE II. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 69 

Lep. Soft, Caesar ! 

Afit. No, Lepidus, let him speak : 
The honour's sacred which he talks on now, 
Supposing that I lack'd it.^^ — But, on, Caesar; 
The article of my oath. 

Cces. To lend me arms and aid when I required them ; 
The which you both denied. 

Ant. Neglected, rather ; 

And then when poison'd hours had bound me up 
From mine own knowledge. As nearly as I may, 
I'll play the penitent to you : but mine honesty 
Shall not make poor my greatness, nor my power 
Work without it.i^ Truth is, that Fulvia, 
To have me out of Egypt, made wars here ; 
For which myself, the ignorant motive, do 
So far ask pardon as befits mine honour 
To stoop in such a case. 

Lep. 'Tis noble spoken. 

Mec. If it might please you, to enforce no further 
The griefs ^^ between ye : to forget them quite 
Were to remember that the present need 
Speaks to atone you.i^ 

Lep. Worthily spoken, Mecaenas. 

f Eno. Or, if you borrow one another's love for the instant, 

14 Mason explains, that the force of now does not fall with talks, but with 
is sacred ; "the point of honour, which he talks on, is sacred with me now, 
however negligent, or untrue to my oath, I may have been then." He 
accordingly excuses his fault, asks pardon, and tenders reparation. 

1^ // refers to honesty, and power and greatness are used as equivalent 
terms : " nor shall my power work in disregard of honesty." 

16 Griefs for grievances ; a frequent usage. 

1"^ To reconcile, or at-one you. Atone is always so used by Shake- 
speare. 



70 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT II. 

you may, when you hear no more words of Pompey, return 
it again : you shall have time to wrangle in when you have 
nothing else to do. 

Ant. Thou art a soldier only ; speak no more. 

Eno. That truth should be silent I had almost forgot. 

Ant. You wrong this presence ; therefore speak no more. 

Eno. Go to, then ; your considerate stone.^^ 

Cces. I do not much dislike the matter, but 
The manner of his speech ; for't cannot be 
We shall remain in friendship, our conditions 
So differing in their acts.^^ Yet, if I knew 
What hoop should hold us stanch, from edge to edge 
O' the world I would pursue it. 

Agr. Give me leave, Caesar, — 

Ccds. Speak, Agrippa. 

Agr. Thou hast a sister by the mother's side, 
Admired Octavia : great Mark Antony 
Is now a widower. 

Cces. Say not so, Agrippa : 

If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof 
Were well deserved of rashness. ^^ 

Ant. I am not married, Caesar : let me hear 
Agrippa further speak. 

Agr. To hold you in perpetual amity, 

18 Meaning, apparently, / am your considerate stone ; like a statue, which 
seems to think, but speaks not. " As mute as a stone," and " as silent as a 
stone," were common phrases. 

19 Conditions, as usual, for tempers or dispositions. Acts is here put, 
apparently, for effects, workings, or ways of showing themselves. 

20 A rather awkward and obscure expression, but meaning, probably, 
you had well deserved the reproof of rashness. " Your reproof" may mean 
either the reproof you give or the reproof you receive : here it means the 
latter. For similar instances of language see Hamlet, page 194, note 21. 



SCENE II. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 7I 

To make you brothers, and to knit your hearts 

With an unsHpping knot, take Antony 

Octavia to his wife ; whose beauty claims 

No worse a husband than the best of men ; 

Whose virtue and whose general graces speak 

That which none else can utter. By this marriage, 

All little jealousies, which now seem great. 

And all great fears, which now import ^^ their dangers^ 

Would then be nothing : truths would be but tales, 

Where now half tales be truths : ^^ her love to both 

Would each to other, and all loves to both. 

Draw after her. Pardon what I have spoke ; 

For 'tis a studied, not a present thought. 

By duty ruminated. 

Ant. Will Caesar speak? 

Cces. Not till he hears how Antony is touch'd 
With what is spoke already. 

Ant What power is in Agrippa, 

If I would say, Agrippa, be it so, 
To make this good? 

Cces. The power of Caesar, and 

His power unto Octavia. 

Ant. May I never 

To this good purpose, that so fairly shows, 
Dream of impediment ! Let me have thy hand : 
Further this act of grace ; and from this hour 

21 Import here has the sense of bring in, draw on, or beget; as in such 
cases the fear of trouble is apt of itself to make trouble. 

22 The meaning here is somewhat dark, but may be explained thus : 
" Even true reports of differences between you will then pass for idle tales, 
and will not catch public credit ; whereas now mere rumours of such dif- 
ferences easily gain belief, and so do all the mischief of truths." Here, as 
often, where is equivalent to whereas. 



72 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT IL 

The heart of brothers govern in our loves 
And sway our great designs ! 

C(Bs. There is my hand. 

A sister I bequeath you, whom no brother 
Did ever love so dearly : let her live 
To join our kingdoms and our hearts ; and never 
Fly off our loves again ! 

Lep. Happily, amen ! 

Ant. I did not think to draw my sword 'gainst 
Pompey ; 
For he hath laid strange courtesies and great 
Of late upon me ; I must thank him only. 
Lest my remembrance suffer ill report ; 
At heel of that, defy him. 

Lep. Time calls upon's : 

Of us must Pompey presently be sought, 
. Or else he seeks out us. 

Ant. Where lies he? 

Cces. About the Mount Misenum. 

Ant. What's his strength 

By land? 

Cces. Great and increasing : but by sea 
He is an absolute master. 

Ant. So is the fame. 

Would we had spoke ^3 together ! Haste we for it : 
Yet, ere we put ourselves in arms, dispatch we 
The business we have talk'd of. 

C(ES. With most gladness ; 

23 " Would we had spoke " here means " would we had fought "; that is, 
himself and Pompey. So in the sixth scene of this Act : " Thou canst not 
fear us, Pompey, with thy sails ; we'll speak with thee at sea : at land, thou 
know'st how much we do o'er-count thee." 



SCENE II. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 73 

And do invite you to my sister's view, 
Whither straight I'll lead you. 

Ant Let us, Lepidus, 

Not lack your company. 

Lep. Noble Antony, 

Not sickness should detain me. 

\_Floiirish. Exeunt Cesar, Antony, and Lepidus. 

Mec. Welcome from Egypt, sir. 

Eno. Half the heart of Caesar, worthy Mecaenas ! — My 
honourable friend, Agrippa ! — 

Agr. Good Enobarbus ! 

Mec. We have cause to be glad that matters are so well 
digested. You stay'd well by't in Egypt. 

Eno. Ay, sir ; we did sleep day out of countenance, and 
made the night light with drinking. 

Mec. Eight wild-boars roasted whole at a breakfast, and 
but twelve persons there ! is this true?^^ 

Eno. This was but as a fly by an eagle : we had much 
more monstrous matter of feast, which worthily deserved 
noting. 

24 I have heard my grandfather Lampryas report, that one Philotas, a 
physician, told him that he was at that time present in Alexandria, and 
studied physic ; and that, having acquaintance with one of Antonius" cooks, 
he took him to Antonius' house, to show him the wonderful sumptuous 
charge and preparation of one only supper. When he was in the kitchen, 
and saw a world of diversities of meats, and amongst others eight wild boars 
roasted whole, he began to wonder at it, and said, " Sure you have a great 
number of guests to supper." The cook fell a-laughing, and answered him, 
" No, not many guests, nor above twelve in all ; but yet all that is boiled or 
roasted must be served in whole, or else it would be marred straight : for 
Antonius peradventure will sup presently, or it may be a pretty while hence, 
or like enough he will defer it longer, for that he hath drunk well to-day, or 
else hath had some other great matters in hand ; and therefore we do not 
dress one supper only, but many suppers, because we are uncertain when he 
will sup." — Plutarch, 



74 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT IL 

Mec. She s a most triumphant lady, if report be square to her. 

Eno. When she first met Mark Antony, she pursed up his 
heart upon the river of Cydnus.^^ 

Agr. There she appear'd indeed ; or my reporter devised 
well for her. 

Eno. I will tell you. 
The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, 
Burn'd on the water : the poop was beaten gold ; 
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that 
The winds were love-sick with them ; th' oars were silver. 
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made 

25 Antonius being thus inclined, the last and extremest mischief of all 
other, to wit, the love of Cleopatra, lighted on him, who did waken and stir 
up many vices yet hidden in him, and never seen of any ; and, if any spark 
of goodness or hope of rising were left in him, Cleopatra quenched it 
straight, and made it worse than before. The manner how he fell in love 
with her was this. Antonius, going to make war with the Parthians, sent to 
command Cleopatra to appear personally before him when he came into 
Cilicia, to answer unto such accusations as were laid against her, being this, 
that she had aided Cassius and Brutus in their war against him. The mes- 
senger sent to make this summons, when he had thoroughly considered her 
beauty, the excellent grace and sweetness of her tongue, nothing mistrusted 
that Antonius would do any hurt to so noble a lady, but rather assured him- 
self that within a few days she should be in great favour with him. There- 
upon he did her great honour, and persuaded her to come into Cilicia as 
honourably furnished as she could possible ; and bade her not to be afraid 
at all of Antonius, for he was a more courteous lord than any that she had 
ever seen. Cleopatra, on the other side, guessing by the former access and 
credit she had with Julius Csesar and Cnasus Pompey only for her beauty, 
began to have good hope that she might more easily win Antonius. For 
Caesar and Pompey knew her when she was but a young thing, and knew 
not then what the world meant ; but now she went to Antonius at the age 
when a woman's beauty is at the prime, and she also of best judgment. So 
she furnished herself with a world of gifts, store of gold and silver, and of 
riches and other sumptuous ornaments. But yet she carried nothing with 
her wherein she trusted more than in herself, and in the charms and 
enchantment of her passing beauty and grace. — Plutarch. 



SCENE II. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 75 

The water which they beat to follow faster, 

As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, 

It beggar'd all description : she did lie 

In her pavilion — cloth-of-gold of tissue ^6 — 

O'er-picturing that Venus where we see 

The fancy outwork Nature : on each side her 

26 " Cloth-of-gold of tissue," says Staunton, " is cloth-of-gold on a ground 
of tissue." The phrase is often met with in old English. We should say 
" cloth-of-gold y;? tissue " ; but i?/ and on were often used indiscriminately. 
See Hamlet, page io8, note 38. — Plutarch is especially rich in the passage 
on which this description is founded : " When she was sent unto by divers 
letters, botli from Antonius himself and also from his friends, she made so 
light of it, that she disdained to set forward otherwise than to take her barge 
in the river of Cydnus ; the poop whereof was of gold, the sails of purple, 
and the oars of silver, which kept stroke in rowing after the music of flutes, 
hautboys, citherns, viols, and such other instruments as they played in the 
barge. And now for the person of herself: She was laid under a pavilion 
of cloth-of-gold of tissue, apparalled and attired hke the goddess Venus 
commonly drawn in picture ; and hard by her, on either hand, pretty, fair 
boys apparelled as painters do set forth god Cupid, with little fans in their 
hands, with the which they fanned wind upon her. Her ladies and gentle- 
women also, the fairest of them, were apparelled like the Nereids and the 
Graces ; some steering the helm, others tending the tackle and ropes of the 
barge, out of the which there came a wonderful passing sweet savour of per- 
fumes, that perfumed the wharf's side, pestered with innumerable multitudes 
of people. Some of them followed the barge all along the river-side ; others 
also ran out of the city to see her corning in. So that, in the end, there ran 
such multitudes of people one after another to see her, that Antonius was 
left posted alone in the market-place, in his imperial seat, to give audience ; 
and there went a rumour in the people's mouths, that the goddess Venus 
was come to play with the god Bacchus, for the general good of all Asia. 
When Cleopatra landed, Antonius sent to invite her to supper to him. But 
she sent him word again, he should do better rather to come and sup with 
her. Antonius, therefore, to show himself courteous unto her at her arrival, 
went to supper to her ; where he found such passing sumptuous fare, that 
no tongue can express it. The next night Antonius, feasting her, contended 
to pass her in magnificence and fineness; but she overcame him in both : 
so that he himself began to scorn the gross service of his house, in respect 
of Cleopatra's sumptuousness and fineness." 



76 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT II. 

Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids, 
With divers- colour' d fans, whose wind did seem 
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool. 
And what they undid did. 

Agr. O, rare for Antony ! 

Eno. Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides, 
So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes,^''' 
And made their bends adornings : ^^ at the helm 
A seeming mermaid steers : the silken tackle 
Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands, 
That yarely frame ^^ the office. From the barge 

27 To attend or to do service in one's eye or eyes is an old phrase for 
what we call personal attendance, or for serving in presence. So Milton, in 
one of his Sonnets, speaks of so using his time, " As ever in my great Task- 
master's eye." See, also, Hamlet, page 174, note 2. 

28 A troublesome passage, and the meaning of it is much in question. I 
give Mr. Crosby's explanation, which seems to me better than any hitherto 
offered. Bend, in reference to the eyes and other features, is often used by 
Shakespeare for look. So in Julius Caesar, i. 2 : " And that same eye, whose 
bend doth awe the world." Also in Troilus and Cressida, iv. 5 : " Who 
neither looks upon the heaven nor earth, but gives all gaze and bent of 
amorous view on the fair Cressid." And in Cymbeline, i. i : " Although they 
wear their faces to the bent of the King's looks!' In view of these and several 
other like instances, Mr. Crosby comments as follows : " I conceive that the 
sentence is only a rather grandiloquent way of saying that the Queen's 
young lady attendants watched and waited upon her every gesture, directed 
their eyes to every motion, regarded her with such attention and veneration, 
as to reflect beauty on her ; really making her more beautiful by their watch- 
ful and graceful looks. According to the Poet's inclusive manner, ' tended 
her i' the eyes ' very probably means both waited upon her with their eyes, 
that is, watched for every movement she might make, and looked very 
closely into her eyes, to anticipate every wish." He also quotes from The 
Psalter, 123d Psalm : " As the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their 
masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress," &c. 
And the 145th Psalm : " The eyes of all wait upon Thee, O Lord." See 
Critical Notes. 

29 Yarely frame '\s nimbly ox dexterously perform. So yare and its cog- 
nates were often used. See The Tempest, page 44, note 2. 



SCENE II. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 77 

A strange invisible perfume hits the sense 
Of the adjacent wharves. The city cast 
Her people out upon her ; and Antony 
Enthroned i' the market-place, did sit alone, 
Whistling to th' air ; which, but for vacancy,^^ 
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too, 
And made a gap in nature. 

Agr. Rare Egyptian ! 

Eno. Upon her landing, Antony sent to her. 
Invited her to supper : she replied. 
It should be better he became her guest ; 
Which she entreated. Our courteous Antony, 
Whom ne'er the word of No woman heard speak, 
Being barber'd ten times o'er, goes to the feast, 
And for his ordinary ^i pays his heart 
For what his eyes eat only. 

Agr. Royal wench ! 

She made great Caesar lay his sword to bed. 

Eno. I saw her once 
Hop forty paces through the public street ; 
And, having lost her breath, she spoke, and panted, 
That she did make defect perfection, 
And, breathless, power breathe forth. 

Mec. Now Antony must leave her utterly. 
- Eno. Never ; he will not : 
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale 
Her infinite variety : other women cloy 
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry 

30 But that it would have made a vacuum. The Poet probably had in 
mind the old philosophic axiom, that " Nature abhors a vacuum." This 
axiom was a standing commonplace in the Poet's time. 

31 Ordinary, of course, is dinner or meal. 



78 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT II. 

Where most she satisfies ; for vilest things 
Become themselves in her.^^ 

Mec. If beauty, wisdom, modesty, can settle 
The heart of Antony, Octavia is 
A blessed lottery ^^ ^q hj^i^ 

Agr. Let us go. — 

Good Enobarbus, make yourself my guest 
Whilst you abide here. 

Eno. Humbly, sir, I thank you. \Exeunt 



Scene III. — The Same, A Room in Cesar's House. 

Enter Antony, C^sar, Octavia between them ; and Attend- 
ants. 

Ant. The world and my great office will sometimes 
Divide me from your bosom. 

Octa. All which time 

Before the gods my knee shall bow my prayers 
To them for you. 

Ant. Good night, sir. — My Octavia, 

Read not my blemishes in the world's report : 

32 From Plutarch again : " Her beauty was not so passing as to be un- 
matchable of other women, nor yet such as, upon present view, did enamour 
men with her ; but so sweet was her company and conversation, that a man 
could not possibly but be taken. And, besides her beauty, the good grace 
she had in talk and discourse, her courteous nature, that tempered her 
words and deeds, was a spur that pricked to the quick. Furthermore, her 
voice and words were marvellous pleasant ; for her tongue was an instru- 
ment of music to divers sports and pastimes, the which she easily turned 
into any language that pleased her. She spake unto few barbarous people 
by interpreter, but made them answer herself, or at the least the most part 
of them." 

33 Lottery for allotment, or that which is allotted. 



SCENE III. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 79 

I have not kept my square ; but that to come 

Shall all be done by th' rule. Good night, dear lady. 

Octa. Good night, sir. 

Cces, Good night. \_Exeunt C^sar and Octa via. 

Enter the Soothsayer. 

Ant. Now, sirrah, you do wish yourself in Egypt ? 

Sooth. Would I had never come from thence, nor you 
hither ! 

Ant. If you can, your reason ? 

Sooth. I see it in my notion,^ have it not in my tongue : 
but yet hie you to Egypt again. 

Ant. Say to me 
Whose fortunes shall rise higher, Caesar's or mine ? 

Sooth. Caesar's. 
Therefore, O Antony, stay not by his side : 
Thy demon, that thy spirit which keeps thee, is 
Noble, courageous, high, unmatchable. 
Where Caesar's is not ; but, near him, thy angel 
Becomes a fear,^ as being o'erpower'd : theref6re 
Make space enough between you. 

Ant. Speak this no more. 

Sooth. To none but thee ; no more, but when to thee. 
If thou dost play with him at any game, 
Thou'rt sure to lose ; and, of that natural luck. 
He beats thee 'gainst the odds : thy lustre thickens,^ 

1 As Hamlet says, " in my mind's eye." Shakespeare repeatedly uses 
notion for understanding, judgment, or mind. 

2 A fear sometimes meant that which fears or is cowed, sometimes that 
which scares or affrights. Here it evidently has the former sense. 

3 That is, grows dim, or becomes dark. So, in Macbeth, iii. 2, we have 
" Light thickens." — Plutarch furnished the matter of this choice bit of dia- 
logue : " With Antonius there was a soothsayer or astronomer of "E-gypt, 



80 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT II. 

When he shines by. I say again, thy spirit 
Is all afraid to govern thee near him ; 
But, he away, 'tis noble. 

Ant. Get thee gone ; 

Say to Ventidius I would speak with him : 
He shall to Parthia. — \_Exit Soothsayer. 

Be it art or hap. 
He hath spoken true : the very dice obey him ; 
And in our sports my better cunning faints 
Under his chance : if we draw lots, he speeds ; 
His cocks do win the battle still of mine. 
When it is all to nought ; and his quails ever 
Beat mine, inhoop'd, at odds.^ I will to Egypt : 



that could cast a figure, and judge of men's nativities, to tell them what 
should happen to them. He, either to please Cleopatra, or else for that he 
found it so by his art, told Antonius plainly, that his fortune — which of it- 
self was excellent-good and very great — was altogether blemished and 
obscured by Caesar's fortune ; and therefore he counselled him utterly to 
leave his company, and to get him as far from him as he could. ' For thy 
demon,' said he, ' that is to say, the good angel and spirit that keepeth thee, 
is afraid of his ; and, being courageous and high when he is alone, becometh 
fearful and timorous when he cometh near unto the other.' Howsoever it 
was, the ensuing events proved the Egyptian's words true; for it is said 
that, as often as they two drew cuts for pastime, who should have any thing, 
or whether they played at dice, Antonius always lost. Oftentimes, when 
they were disposed to see cock-fight, or quails, that were taught to fight one 
with another, Cassar's cocks or quails did ever overcome. The which spited 
Antonius in his mind, although he made no outward show of it; and there- 
fore he believed the Egyptian the better." 

4 The ancients used to match quails as we match cocks. Julius Pollux 
relates that a circle was made in which the birds were placed, and he whose 
quail was first driven out of this circle lost the stake. We are told by Mr. 
Marsden that tlie Sumatrans practise these quail-combats. The Chinese 
have always been extremely fond of quail-fighting. Douce has given a 
print, from an elegant Chinese miniature painting, which represents some 
ladies engaged at this amusement, where the quails are actually inhooped. 



SCENE V. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. bl 

And, though I make this marriage for my peace, 
I' the East my pleasure lies. — 

£n^er Ventidius. 

/ O, come, Ventidius, 

You must to Parthia : ' your commission's ready ; 
Follow me, and receive't. \^Exeunt. 

Scene IV. — The Same. A Street. 
Enter Lepidus, Mec^nas, and Agrippa. 

Lep. Trouble yourselves no further ; pray you, hasten 
Your generals after. 

Agr. Sir, Mark Antony 

Will e'en but kiss Octavia, and we'll follow. 

Lep. Till I shall see you in your soldier's dress, 
Which will become you both, farewell. 

Mec. We shall, 

As I conceive the journey, be at th' Mount ^ 
Before you, Lepidus. 

Lep. Your way is shorter ; 

My purposes do draw me much about : 
You'll win two days upon me. 

^'^' \ Sir, good success ! 

Agr. 3 

Lep. Farewell. \_Exeunt. 

Scene V. — Alexandria. A Room in Cleopatra's Palace. 

Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Iras, and Alexas. 

Cleo. Give me some music, — music, moody food 
Of us that trade in love. 

5 At Mount Misenum, whither they are going, to confer with Pompey. 



82 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT II. 

Attend, The music, ho ! 

Enter Mardian. 

Cleo, Let it alone ; let's to billiards : ^ come, Charmian. 

Char. My arm is sore j best play with Mardian. 

Cleo. As well a woman with an eunuch play'd 
As with a woman. — Come, you'll play with me, sir ? 

Mar. As well as I can, madam. 

Cleo. And when good will is show'd, though't come too 
short, 
The actor may plead pardon. I'll none now : 
Give me mine angle, — we'll to th' river : there, 
My music playing far off, I will betray 
Tawny-finn'd fishes ; my bended hook shall pierce 
Their slimy jaws ; and, as I draw them up, 
I'll think them every one an Antony, 
And say. Ah, ha / you're caught. 

Char. 'Twas merry when 

You wager'd on your angling ; when your diver 
Did hang a salt-fish on his hook, which he 
With fervency drew up. 

Cleo. That time, — O times ! — 

I laugh'd him out of patience ; and that night 
I laugh'd him into patience : and next morn, 

1 " An anachronism," say the critics ; " billiards were not known to the 
ancients." But how do they know this ? Late researches have shown that 
many things were in use in old Egypt, which, afterwards lost, have been re-- 
invented in modern times. But Shakespeare did not know this ? Doubt- 
less, not ; but then he knew that by using a term familiar to his audience he 
would lead their thoughts to what has always followed in the train of lux- 
ury and refinement. Suppose he had been so learned, and withal such a 
slave to his learning, as to use a term signifying some game which the Eng- 
lish people never had heard of. Which were the greater anachronism ? 



SCENE V. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. • 83 

Ere the ninth hour, I drunk him to his bed ; 
Then put my tires and mantles on him, whilst 
I wore his sword Philippan.^ — 

Enter a Messenger. 

O, from Italy ! — 
Ram thou thy fruitful tidings in mine ears. 
That long time have been barren. 

Mess, Madam, madam, — 

Cleo. Antony's dead ? If thou say so, thou villain. 
Thou kill'st thy mistress : but, well and free, 
If thou so yield him, there is gold, and here 
My bluest veins to kiss ; a hand that kings 
Have lipp'd, and trembled kissing. 

Mess. First, madam, he is well. 

Cleo. Why, there's more gold. 

But, sirrah, mark, we use 
To say the dead are well : bring it to that, 
The gold I give thee will I melt and pour 
Down thy ill-uttering throat. 

Mess. Good madam, hear me. 

Cleo. Well, go to, I will ; 

But there's no goodness in thy face : if Antony 
Be free and healthful, why so tart a favour 
To trumpet such good tidings ? If not well. 
Thou shouldst come like a Fury crown 'd with snakes, 
Not like a formal man.*^ 

Mess. Will't please you hear me ? 

2 The battle of Philippi being the greatest action of Antony's life, it was 
an adroit piece of flattery to name his sword from it. 

3 K formal man is a man in his senses, or whose mind is in right form. 
See Twelfth Night, page 78, note 19. 



84 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT II. 

Cleo. I have a mind to strike thee ere thou speak'st : 
Yet, if thou say Antony Hves, is well, 
Or friends with Csesar, or not captive to him, 
I'll set thee in a shower of gold, and hail 
Rich pearls upon thee. 

Mess. Madam, he's well. 

Cleo. Well said. 

Mess. And friends with Caesar. 

Cleo. Thou'rt an honest man. 

Mess. Caesar and he are greater friends than ever. 

Cleo. Make thee a fortune from me. 

Mess. But yet, madam, — 

Cleo. I do not like But yet, it does allay 
The good precedence ;^ fie upon But yet! 
But yet, is as a jailer to bring forth 
Some monstrous malefactor. Pr'ythee, friend, 
Pour out the pack of matter to mine ear. 
The good and bad together. He's friends with Caesar ; 
In state of health thou say'st ; and thou say'st free. 

Mess. Free, madam ! no ; I made no such report : 
He's bound unto Octavia. 

Cleo. I am pale, Charmian. 

Mess. Madam, he's married to Octavia. 

Cleo. The most infectious pestilence upon thee ! 

\_Strikes him down. 

Mess. Good madam, patience. 

Cleo. What say you ? Hence, 

\_Strikes him again. 
Horrible villain ! or I'll spurn thine eyes 

4 Precedence for what has preceded ; what the Messenger has just said. 
Cleopatra means that but yet is introductory to something bad. 



SCENE V. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 85 

Like balls before me ; I'll unhair thy head : 

\^S/ie hales him up and down. 
Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire, and stew'd in brine, 
Smarting in lingering pickle. 

Mess. Gracious madam, 

I that do bring the news made not the match. 

Cleo. Say 'tis not so, a province I will give thee, 
And make thy fortunes proud : the blow thou hadst 
Shall make thy peace for moving me to rage ; 
And I will boot thee with what gift besides 
Thy modesty can beg. 

Mess. He's married, madam. 

Cleo. Rogue, thou hast lived too long. \^Draws a knife. 

Mess. Nay, then I'll run. 

What mean you, madam ? I have made no fault. \_Exit. 

Char. Good madam, keep yourself within yourself : 
The man is innocent. 

Cleo. Some innocents 'scape not the thunderbolt. — 
Melt Egypt into Nile ! and kindly creatures 
Turn all to serpents ! — Call the slave again j 
Though I am mad, I will not bite him ; call. 

Char. He is afeard to come. 

Cleo. I will not hurt him. — 

\_Exit CharmiaNc 
These hands do lack nobility, that they strike 
A meaner than myself; since I myself 
Have given myself the cause. — 

Re-enter Charmian and Messenger. 

Come hither, sir. 
Though it be honest, it is never good 
To bring bad news : give to a gracious message 



S6 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT II. 

An host of tongues j but let ill tidings tell 
Themselves when they be felt. 

Mess. I've done my duty. 

C/eo. Is he married? 
I cannot hate thee worser than I do, 
If thou again say Yes. 

Mess. He's married, madam. 

C/eo. The gods confound thee ! dost thou hold there still ? 

Mess. Should I lie, madam ? 

C/eo. ' O, I would thou didst, 

So half my Egypt were submerged, and made 
A cistern for scaled snakes ! Go, get thee hence : 
Hadst thou Narcissus in thy face, to me 
Thou wouldst appear most ugly. He is married ? 

Mess. I crave your Highness' pardon. 

C/eo. He is married? 

Mess. Take no offence that I would not offend you : 
To punish me for what you make me do 
Seems much unequal. He's married to Octavia. 

C/eo. O, that his fault should make a knave of thee, 
That art in what thou'rt sure of ! ^ Get thee hence : 
The merchandise ^ which thou hast brought from Rome 
Are all too dear for me : lie they upon thy hand. 
And be undone by 'em ! \_Exi/ Messenger. 

C/iar. Good your Highness, patience. 

C/eo. In praising Antony, I have dispraised Caesar. 



5 That is, " sharest in, or art mixed up with, or infected by, the message 
which thou art sure of." So in i. 2: " The nature of bad news infects the 
teller y Cleopatra's idea seems to be, that the Messenger is made a knave 
by the knavish message which he brings, and with which he shows himself 
to be in sympathy by sticking to it so constantly. See Critical Notes. 

6 Merchandise is here a collective noun, and so takes a plural predicate. 



SCENE VI. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 8/ 

Char. Many times, madam. 

Cleo. I am paid for't now. 

Lead me from hence ; 

I faint. O Iras ! Charmian ! — 'Tis no matter. — 
Go to the fellow, good Alexas ; bid him 
Report the feature "^ of Octavia, her years, 
Her inclination ; let him not leave out 
The colour of her hair : bring me word quickly. — 

{_Exit Alexas. 
Let him for ever go : — let him not, Charmian ; ^ 
Though he be painted one way like a Gorgon, 
The other way's ^ a Mars. — \To Mard.] Bid you Alexas 
Bring me word how tall she is. — Pity me, Charmian, 
But do not speak to me. Lead me to my chamber. 

[^Exeunt 

Scene VI. — Near Misenum. 

Flourish. Enter Pompey and Menas from one side, with 
drum and trumpet : from the other, C^sar, x^ntony, Lepi- 
Dus, Enobarbus, Mec^nas, with Soldiers marching. 

Pom. Your hostages I have, so have you mine ; 
And we shall talk before we fight. 

Cces. Most meet 

That first we come to words ; and therefore have we 
Our written purposes before us sent ; 
Which if thou hast consider'd, let us know 

7 Feature is sometimes used for the whole form ; the personal aspect or 
make-up generally. See The Merchant, page 142, note 22. 

8 Cleopatra is now talking in broken sentences, not of the messenger, but 
of Antony, 

9 " The other way he is a Mars." A rather harsh contraction ; but 
Shakespeare has many others nearly as much so. 



88 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT 

If 'twill tie up thy discontented sword, 
And carry back to Sicily much tall i youth 
That else must perish here. 

Pom. To you all three, 

The senators alone of this great world, 
Chief factors for the gods : I do not know 
Wherefore my father should revengers want, 
Having a son and friends ; since Juhus Caesar, 
Who at Philippi the good Brutus ghosted, 
There saw you labouring for him.^ What was't 
That moved pale Cassius to conspire ; and what 
Made the all-honour'd, honest Roman, Brutus, 
With the arm'd rest, courtiers of beauteous freedom, 
To drench the Capitol, but that they would 
Have one man but a man ? And that is it 
Hath made me rig my navy, at whose burden 
The anger' d ocean foams ; with which I meant 
To scourge th' ingratitude that despiteful Rome 
Cast on my noble father. 

CcEs. Take your time. 

Ant. Thou canst not fear us,^ Pompey, with thy sails ; 
We'll speak with thee at sea : at land, thou know'st 
How much we do o'er-count thee.^ 



1 Tall was used for stout, brave. See Twelfth Night, page 35, note 4, 

2 There is some obscurity here, which may be removed thus : " Julius 
Caesar, after his death, saw you his son and friends labouring for his re- 
venge at Philippi : therefore I know no reason why my father should want 
revengers, as he has also a son and friends surviving him." 

3 To fear was often used as a transitive verb. See 2 King Henry the 
Fourth, page 154, note 13. 

4 O'er-count is here used equivocally, implying that Antony has over- 
reached as well as outnumbered him. Antony had in fact got possession 
of the splendid mansion built and occupied by Pompey's father. 



SCENE VI. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 89 

Pom. At land, indeed, 

Thou dost o'er-count me of my father's house : 
But, since the cuckoo builds not for himself,^ 
Remain in't as thou mayst. 

Lep. Be pleased to tell us — 

For this is from the present^ — how you take 
The offer we have sent you. 

Cces. There's the point. 

Ant. Which do not be entreated to, but weigh 
' What it is worth embraced. 

C(Es. And what may follow, 

To try a larger fortune. 

Pom. You've made me offer 

Of Sicily, Sardinia ; and I must 
Rid all the sea of pirates ; then, to send 
Measures of wheat to Rome j this 'greed upon, 
To part with unhack'd edges, and bear back 
Our targs undinted. 

C(ES.'\ 

Ant. V That's our offer. 

Lep. 3 

Pom. Know, then, 

I came before you here a man prepared 
To take this offer ; but Mark Antony 
Put me to some impatience. — Though I lose 
The praise of it by telling, you must know, 
When Caesar and your brother were at blows. 
Your mother came to Sicily, and did find 
Her welcome friendly. 

5 For the naughty custom of the cuckoo, here referred to, see 1 King 
Henry the Fourth, page 168, note 6. 

6 Foreign to the purpose of our present interview or discussion. 



90 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT II 

Ant I have heard it, Pompey; 

And am well studied for a liberal thanks 
Which I do owe you. 

Pom. Let me have your hand : 

I did not think, sir, to have met you here. 

Ant The beds i' the East are soft ; and thanks to you, 
That call'd me timelier than my purpose hither ; 
For I have gain'd by't. 

CcBS. Since I saw you last, 

There is a change upon you. 

Pom. Well, I know not 

What counts '^ harsh fortune casts upon my face ; 
But in my bosom shall she never come, 
To make my heart her vassal. 

Lep. Well met here. 

Pom. I hope so, Lepidus. — Thus we are agreed : 
I crave our composition may be written. 
And seal'd between us. 

CcBs. That's the next to do. 

Pom. We'll feast each other ere we part ; and let's 
Draw lots who shall begin. 

Ant That will I, Pompey. 

Pom. No, Antony, take the lot : but, first 
Or last, your fine Egyptian cookery 
Shall have the fame. I've heard that Julius Caesar 
Grew fat with feasting there. 

Ant You have heard much. 

Pom. I have fair meanings, sir. 

Ant And fair words to them. 

Pom. Then so much have I heard : . 

■^ A metaphor from making marks or lines in casting accounts. 



SCENE VI. ANTONY AND CLEORATRA. 9I 

And I have heard, Apoliodorus carried — 

Eno. No more of that : he did so. 

Pom. What, I pray you? 

Eno, A certain Queen to Caesar in a mattress.^ 

Pom. I know thee now : how farest thou, soldier? 

Eno. Well ; 

And well am like to do ; for I perceive 
Four feasts are toward. 

Pom. Let me shake thy hand ; 

I never hated thee : I've seen thee fight, 
When I have envied thy behaviour. 

Eno. Sir, 

I never loved you much ; but I ha' praised ye, 
When you have well deserved ten times as much 
As I have said you did. 

Pom. Enjoy thy plainness, 

It nothing ill becomes thee. — 
Aboard my galley I invite you all : 
Will you lead, lords ? 

CCES.~\ 

Ant. >■ Show us the way, sir. 

Lep. 3 

Pom. Come. 

\_Exeunt all but Menas and Enobarbus. 

8 The incident here alluded to is related in Plutarch's Life of Julms 
C(Bsar. After telling how, upon Caesar's coming to Alexandria, Pothinus 
the eunuch drove Cleopatra from the Court, and how Cassar sent secretly 
for her to come to him, he goes on thus : " Then, having no other meane 
to come into the court without being knowne, she laid herself downe upon 
a mattrasse or fiockbed, which Apoliodorus tied and bound up together 
like a bundle with a great leather thong, and so tooke her upon his backe, 
and brought her thus hampered in this fardle unto C^sar in the castle gate. 
This was the first occasion, it is reported, that made Caesar to love her." 
The incident is dramatized with much spirit, in Fletcher's False One. 



92 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT II. 

Men. \_Aside.'] Thy father, Pompey, would ne'er have 
made this treaty. — You and I have known, sir. 

JSno. At sea, I think. 

Men. We have, sir. 

Eno. You have done well by water. 

Men. And you by land. 

£no. I will praise any man that will praise me ; though it 
cannot be denied what I have done by land. 

Men. Nor what I have done by water. 

£no. Yes, something you can deny for your own safety : 
you have been a great thief by sea. 

Men. And you by land. 

Eno. There I deny my land service. But give me your 
hand, Menas : if our eyes had authority, here they might 
take two thieves kissing. 

Men. All men's faces are true, whatsoe'er their hands are. 

jEno. But there is never a fair woman has a true face. 

Men. No slander ; they steal hearts. 

£no. We came hither to fight with you. 

Men. For my part, I am sorry it is turn'd to a drinking. 
Pompey doth this day laugh away his fortune. 

£no. If he do, sure, he cannot weep't back again. 

Men. You've said,^ sir. We look'd not for Mark Antony 
here : pray you, is he married to Cleopatra? 

£no. Caesar's sister is call'd Octavia. 

Men. True, sir ; she was the wife of Caius Marcellus. 

Bno. But she is now the wife of Marcus Antonius. 

Men. Pray ye, sir? 

£no. 'Tis true. 

9 This was a common phrase of assent ; and equivalent to our " just so." 
See Twelfth Night, page 83, note 3. 



SCENE VI. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 93 

Men. Then is Caesar and he for ever knit together. 

Eno. If I were bound to divine of this unity, I would not 
prophesy so. 

y~^Men. I think the pohcy of that purpose made more in the 
marriage than the love of the parties. i^ 

Eno. I think so too. But you shall find, the band that 
seems to tie their friendship together will be the very 
strangler of their amity. Octavia is of a holy, cold, and still 
conversation. J 

Men. Who would not have his wife so ? 

Eno. Not he that himself is not so ; which is Mark 
Antony. (He will to his Egyptian dish again : then shall 
the sighs of Octavia blow the fire up in Caesar; and, as I 
said before, that which is the strength of their amity shall 
prove the immediate author of their variance. Antony will 
use his affection where it is ; he married but his occasion ^^ 
here. 

Men. And thus it may be. Come, sir, will you aboard? 
I have a health for you. 

Eno. I shall take it, sir : we have used our throats in 
Egypt. 

Men. Come, let's away. \_Exeunt. 

10 Meaning, simply, that the marriage was one of policy, not of love, or 
that political ends had the chief hand in making it up. 

11 Occasion in the sense of convenience, interest^ or advantage. 



94 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 



Scene VII. — On board Pompey's Galley, 
Misenum. 

Music. Enter two or three Servants, with a banquet. 

1 Serv. Here they'll be, man. Some o' their plants ^ are 
ill-rooted already ; the least wind i' the world will blow them 
down. 

2 Sej^). Lepidus is high-colour'd. 

1 Serv. They have made him drink alms-drink.^ 

2 Serv. As they pinch one another by the disposition,^ 
he cries out No more ; reconciles them to his entreaty, and 
himself to the drink. 

1 Serv. But it raises the greater war between him and 
his discretion. 

2 Serv. Why, this it is to have a name in great men's fel- 
lowship : I had as lief have a reed that will do me no service 
as a partisan ^ I could not heave. 

I Serv. To be called into a huge sphere, and not to be 
seen to move in't, are the holes where eyes should be, which 
pitifully disaster the cheeks.^ 

1 Plants, besides its common meaning, is here used for the soles of the 
feet, one of its Latin senses. So in Chapman's version of the sixteenth 
Iliad : " Even to the low plants of his feet his forme was altered." 

2 " A phrase," says Warburton, " among good fellows, to signify that 
liquor of another's share which his companions drink to ease him. But it 
satirically alludes to Caesar and Antony's admitting him into the triumvirate, 
in order to take off from themselves the load of envy." 

3 Meaning much the same as the phrase now current, of " touching one 
in a sore place." 

4 A partisan was a weapon between a pike and a halberd, not being so 
long : it was made use of in mounting a breach, &c. 

5 A sight as unseemly as the holes where the eyes should be, without the 
presence of the eye to fill them. 



SCENE VII. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 95 

Sennet sounded. Enter C^sar, Antony, Lepidus, Pompey, 
Agrippa, Mec^nas, Enobarbus, Menas, with other Cap- 
tains. 

Ant. [To C^SAR.] Thus do they, sir : They take the flow 
o' the Nile 
By certain scales i' the pyramid ; they know, 
By th' height, the lowness, or the mean, if dearth 
Or foison ^ follow : the higher Nilus swells, 
The more it promises : as it ebbs, the seedsman 
Upon the slime and ooze scatters his grain, 
And shortly comes to harvest. 

LeJ>. You've strange serpents there. 

Ant. Ay, Lepidus. 

Lep. Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by 
the operation of your Sun ; so is your crocodile. 

Ant. They are so. 

Pom. Sit, — and some wine ! — A health to Lepidus ! 

Zep. I am not so well as I should be, but I'll ne'er out. 

£no. Not till you have slept ; I fear me you'll be in till 
then. 

LeJ>. Nay, certainly, I have heard the Ptolemies' pyra- 
mises '^ are very goodly things ; without contradiction, I have 
heard that. 

Men. [Aside to Pom.] Pompey, a word. 

Fom. [Aside to Men.] Say in mine ear : what is't? 

Men. [Aside to Pom.] Forsake thy seat, I do beseech 
thee, captain, 
And hear me speak a word. 

6 Foison is plenty, abundance. See The Tempest, page 122, note 22. 
"^ Lepidus's tongue is getting thick with wine, and pyramises is his boozy 
pronunciation oi pyramids. 



96 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT II. 

Pom. \_Aside to Men.] Forbear me till anon. — 
This wine for Lepidus ! 

Lep. What manner o' thing is your crocodile ? 

Ant. It is shaped, sir, like itself; and it is as broad as it 
hath breadth ; it is just so high as it is, and moves with its 
own organs : it lives by that which nourisheth it ; and, the 
elements once out of it, it transmigrates. 

Lep. What colour is it of? 

Ant. Of its own colour too. 

Lep. 'Tis a strange serpent. 

Ant. 'Tis so. And the tears of it are wet. 

CcBs. Will this description satisfy him ? 

Ant. With the health that Pompey gives him, else he is 
a very epicure. 

Pom. \_Aside to Men.] Go hang, sir, hang ! Tell me of 
that ? away ! 
Do as I bid you. — Where's this cup I call'd for? 

Men. \_Aside to Pom.] If for the sake of merit thou wilt 
hear me. 
Rise from thy stool. 

Pom. \_Aside toMm^T^ I think thou'rt mad. The matter? 

\_Rises, and walks aside. 

Men. I've ever held my cap off to thy fortunes. 

Pom. Thou hast served me with much faith. What's else 
to say? — 
Be jolly, lords. 

Ant. These quicksands, Lepidus, 

Keep off them, or you sink. 

Men. Wilt thou be lord of all the world ? 

Pom. What say'st thou ? 

Men. Wilt thou be lord of the whole world ? That's twice. 

Pom. How should that be ? 



SCENE VII. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 97 

Men. But entertain it, 

And, though thou think me poor, I am the man 
Will give thee all the world. 

Pom. Hast thou drunk well? 

Men. No, Pompey, I have kept me from the cupc 
Thou art, if thou darest be, the earthly Jove : 
Whate'er the ocean pales, or sky inclips,^ 
Is thine, if thou wilt ha't. 

Pom. Show me which way. 

Men. These three world-sharers, these competitors. 
Are in thy vessel : let me cut the cable ; 
And, when we are put off, fall to their throats : 
All then is thine. 

Pom. Ah, this thou shouldst have done, 

And not have spoke on't ! In me 'tis villainy j 
In thee't had been good service. Thou must know, 
'Tis not my profit that does lead mine honour \ 
Mine honour, it. Repent that e'er thy tongue 
Hath so betray'd thine act : being done unknown, 
I should have found it afterwards well done ; 
But must condemn it now. Desist, and drink. 

Men. [Aside.'] For this, 
I'll never follow thy pall'd ^ fortunes more. 
Who seeks, and will not take when once 'tis offer'd. 
Shall never find it more. 

Pofn. This health to Lepidus ! 

Anf. Bear him ashore. — I'll pledge it for him, Pompey. 

£?io. Here's to thee, Menas ! 

Men. Enobarbus, welcome ! 



8 Pa^es is surrounds, as with palings. To inclip is to enclose, to embrace. 

9 Paltd \s faint, drooping, or languishing. See Hamlet, page 212, note 4. 



98 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, ACT II. 

Pom. Fill till the cup be hid. 

Eno. There's a strong fellow, Menas. 

[Pointing to the Attendant who carries off LepiduSc 

Men. Why? 

Eno. 'A bears the third part of the world, man; see'st 
not? 

Men. The third part, then, is drunk : would it were all, 
That it might go on wheels ! ^^ 

Eno. Drink thou ; increase the reels. 

Men. Come. 

Pom. This is not yet an Alexandrian feast. 

Ant. It ripens toward it. — f Strike the vessels/^ ho ! — 
Here is to Caesar 1 

CcBs. I could well forbear't. 

It's monstrous labour, when I wash my brain, 
And it grows fouler. 

Ant. Be a child o' the time. 

Cces. Possess it, ^^ I'll make answer : 
But I had rather fast from all four days 
Than drink so much in one. 

Eno. \To Antony.] Ha, my brave Emperor ! 

Shall we dance now th' Egyptian Bacchanals, 
And celebrate our drink ? 

Pom. Let's ha't, good soldier. 

Ant. Come, let's all take hands, 

1" That it might whirl round, or seem to do so, as it sometimes does to 
people whose heads are swimming with intoxication. So in the Song below : 
"Cup us till the world go round!' 

11 That is, tap them, broach them. So in Fletcher's Monsieur Thomas, 
V. 10 : " Home, Launce, and strike a fresh piece of wine." 

12 To be a child of the time is to obey it or comply with it. And Caesar's 
answer means, " Be its master rather; command it." Shakespeare uses time 
for the contents of time, what happens in it. 



SCENE VII. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 99 

Till that the conquering wine hath steep'd our sense 
In soft and delicate Lethe. 

Eno. All take hands. — 

Make battery to our ears with the loud music ; — 
The while I'll place you : then the boy shall sing; 
The holding i3 every man shall bear as loud 
As his strong sides can volley. 

\_Music plays. Enobarbus //(ai^^i- them hand in hand. 

Song. 

Come, thou monarch of the vine, 
Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne ! i'* 
In thy fats our cares be di'own^d. 
With thy grapes our hairs be crowned! 
Cup us till the world go round, 
Cup us till the world go round ! 

Cces. What would you more ? — ( Pompey, good night. — 
Good brother, 
Let me request you off : our graver business 
Frowns at this levity. ^ Gentle lords, let's part ; 
You see we've burnt our cheeks : strong Enobarb 
Is weaker than the wine ; and mine own tongue 

13 The holding' is the burden or undersong. So in The Serving Man's 
Comfort, 1593 : " Where a song is to be sung the undersong or holding 
whereof is ' It is merrie in haul, when beards wag all' " 

14 Pink eyne are small eyes. " Some have mighty yies and some be pink- 
yied. Quidam pergrandis sunt luminibus, quidam peti." Horman's Vul- 
garia, 1519. The flower called a. pink is in French ceillet, or little eye. To 
pink and wink is to contract the eyes and peep out of the lids. Yi&xic& pinky 
for tipsy, from the peculiar expression of the eyes of persons in liquor. The 
epithet is therefore well appropriated to the God of wine. — Fats, in the next 
line, is an old form of vats; the name of the cisterns or large vessels in which 
new-made wine is kept. 



100 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT IL 

Splits what it speaks : the wild disguise hath almost 
Antick'd us all.^^ What needs more words ? Good night. — 
Good Antony, your hand. 

Pom. I'll try you on the shore. 

Ant, And shall, sir : give's your hand. 

Pom. O Antony, 

You have my father's house, — But, what? we're friends. 
Come, down into the boat. 

Eno. Take heed you fall not. — 

\_Exeunt all but Enobarbus and Menas. 
Menas, I'll not on shore. 

Men. No, to my cabin. — 

These drums ! these trumpets, flutes ! what ! 
Let Neptune hear we bid a loud farewell 
To these great fellows : sound, and be hang'd, sound out ! 

\_A flourish, with drums. 

Eno. Hoo ! says 'a. — There's my cap. 

Men. Hoo ! — Noble captain, come. \Exeunt. 

15 Made us buffoons or merry-andrews. To play the antic was much the 
same as acting the part of a jester or an " allowed Fool." The word was 
also used of a certain kind of caricatures. And in King Henry V., iii. i, 
the Boy says of Bardolph, Nym, and Pistol, "three such antics do not 
amount to a man." 



SCENE I. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. lOI 

ACT III. 

Scene I. — A Plain in Syria^ 

Enter Ventidius in triumph, with Silius aiid other Romans, 
Officers, and Soldiers/ the dead body of Pacorus borne 
before him. 

Ven. Now, darting Parthia, art thou struck \ ^ and now 
Pleased fortune does of Marcus Crassus' death 
Make me revenger. — Bear the King's son's body 
Before our army. — Thy Pacorus, Orodes,^ 
Pays this for Marcus Crassus. 

Sil. Noble Ventidius, 

Whilst yet with Parthian blood thy sword is warm, 
The fugitive Parthians follow ; spur through Media, 
Mesopotamia, and the shelters whither 
The routed fly : so thy grand captain Antony 
Shall set thee on triumphant chariot, and 
Put garlands on thy head. 

Ven. O Silius, Silius, 

I've done enough : a lower place, note well, 

1 Struck alludes to darting. " Thou whose darts have often struck others 
art struck now thyself." The Parthians were specially noted for their 
mounted archers, whose most effective fighting was when they pretended to 
be flying ; as they would then turn upon their horses, and shoot their arrows 
or darts into the faces of the pursuing enemy. Some twenty years before 
the dme of this scene, Marcus Crassus had led a huge army against the 
Parthians, and was defeated with immense slaughter. Crassus himself 
was slain, and his head sent to Orodes, who caused melted gold to be 
poured into his mouth, saying, " Sate thyself now with that of which in life 
thou wast so greedy." See Julius Ccesar, page 95, note 8, 

2 Pacorus was the son of Orodes^ King of Parthia. 



I02 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT III. 

May make too great an act ; ^ for learn this, Silius : 

Better to leave undone, than by our deed 

Acquire too high a fame when him we serve's away. 

Caesar and Antony have ever won 

More in their officer than person : Sossius, 

One of my place in Syria, his lieutenant, 

For quick accumulation of renown. 

Which he achieved by th' minute, lost his favour. 

Who does i' the wars more than his captain can 

Becomes his captain's captain ; and ambition. 

The soldier's virtue, rather makes choice of loss. 

Than gain which darkens him. 

I could do more to do Antonius good. 

But 'twould offend him ; and in his offence 

Should my performance perish. 

Sil. Thou hast, Ventidius, that 

Without the which a soldier and his sword 
Grants scarce distinction.^ Thou wilt write to Antony ? 

Ven. I'll humbly signify what in his name. 
That magical word of war, we have effected ; 
How, with his banners and his well-paid ranks. 
The ne'er-yet-beaten Horse of Parthia 
We've jaded out o' the field. 

Sil. Where is he now? 

Ven. He purposeth to Athens ; whither, with what haste 
The weight we must convey with's will permit. 
We shall appear before him. — On, there ; pass along ! 

\_Exeunt. 

s A man holding a lower or subordinate place may do too much by sur- 
passing his superior, and so making him jealous. 

4 Grants for affords. The expression is odd, and will not bear analysis ; 
but the meaning is, " Thou hast that judgment without which a soldier scarce 
differs or is distinguished from his sword," 



SCENE II. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. IO3 

Scene II. — Ro^ne. An Ante-chamber in Cesar's House, 
Enter Agrippa and Enobarbus, meeting. 

Agr. What, are the brothers parted? 

Eno. They have dispatch'd with Pompey, he is gone ; 
The other three are seahng. Octavia weeps 
To part from Rome j Csesar is sad ; and Lepidus, 
Since Pompey's feast, as Menas says, is troubled 
With the green-sickness. 

Agr, 'Tis a noble Lepidus. 

Eno. A very fine one. O, how he loves Caesar ! 

Agr. Nay, but how dearly he adores Mark Antony ! 

Eno. Caesar? Why, he's the Jupiter of men. 

Agr. What's Antony ? The god of Jupiter. 

Eno. Spake you of Caesar ? How ! the nonpareil ! 

Agr. Of Antony ? O thou Arabian bird ! 1 

Eno. Would you praise Caesar, say CcEsar ; go no further. 

Agr. Indeed, he phed them both with excellent praises. 

Eno. But he loves Caesar best ; — yet he loves Antony : 
Hoo ! hearts, tongues, figures, scribes, bards, poets, cannot 
Think, speak, cast, write, sing, number, — hoo ! — 
His love to Antony. But, as for Caesar, 
Kjieel down, kneel down, and wonder. 

Agr. Both he loves. 

Eno. They are his shards,^ and he their beetle.'' \Trumpets 
within?^ So, — 

1 The phoenix. So in Cymbeline : " She is alone the Arabian bird, and I 
have lost my wager." — It must be understood that in this dialogue the 
speakers are travestying the flights of Lepidus in praise of his colleagues. 

2 They are the wings that raise this lumpish insect from the ground. See 
Macbeth, page 107, note 13. 



I04 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT III. 

This is to horse. — Adieu, noble Agrippa. 

Agr. Good fortune, worthy soldier ; and farewell. 
Enter Caesar, Antony, Lepidus, and Octavia. 

Ant. No further, sir. 

Cces. You take from me a great part of myself; 
Use me well in't. — Sister, prove such a wife 
As my thoughts make thee, and as my farthest band 
Shall pass on thy approof.^ i— Most noble Antony, 
Let not the piece of virtue, which is set 
Betwixt us as the cement of our love 
To keep it builded, be the ram to batter 
The fortress of it ; for far better might we 
Have loved without this mean, if on both parts 
This be not cherish'd. 

Ant. Make me not offended 

In your distrust. 

CcBs. I've said. 

Ant. You shall not find. 

Though you be therein curious, the least cause 
For what you seem to fear : so, the gods keep you, 
And make the hearts of Romans serve your ends ! 
We will here part. 

Cces. Farewell, my dearest sister, fare thee well : 
The elements be kind to thee, and make 
Thy spirits all of comfort ! ^ fare thee well. 

3 Such as my strongest pledge or assurance shall pass in thy approval. 
For this use of hand see page 58, note 13. 

4 To be of comfort is repeatedly used by Shakespeare for to be comforted. 
See Tempest, page 75, note 106. — By elements here I understand no more or 
other than is usually meant by that term : Octavia is to sail for Athens, and 
her brother wishes that the winds and seas may be kind to her. Some, 
however, find a more recondite meaning : " May the elements be so mixed 
and tempered in thee as to make thee cheerful and happy." 



SCENE II. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. IO5 

Octa. My noble brother ! — 
^Ant. The April's in her eyes ; it is love's Spring, 
And these the showers to bring it on. — Be cheerful.^ 

Octa. Sir, look well to my husband's house ; and — 

CcBs, What, 

Octavia? 

Octa. I'll tell you in your ear. 

Ant. Her tongue will not obey her heart, nor can 
Her heart inform her tongue : the swan's down-feather 
Thus stands upon the swell at full of tide,^ 
And neither way inclines. 

Eno. \_Aside to Agr.] Will Caesar weep ? 

Agr. \_Aside to Eno.] He has a cloud in's face. 

Eno. \_Aside to Agr.] He were the worse for that were 
he a horse ; ^ 
So is he being a man. 

Agr. \_Aside to Eno.] Why, Enobarbus, 
When Antony found Julius Caesar dead, 
He cried almost to roaring ; and he wept 
When at Philippi he found Brutus slain. 

Eno. \_Aside to Agr.] That year, indeed, he was troubled 
with a rheum ; ''' 

5 Very delicate imagery, but not perfectly clear : the plain English of it 
is, that Octavia's heart is divided equally between her brother and her hus- 
band, so that she cannot tell which she loves most. 

6 A horse is said to have a cloud in his face when he has a dark-coloured 
spot in his forehead between the eyes. This gives him a sour look, and is 
thought to indicate an ugly temper. Burton has applied the phrase to the 
look of a female : " Every lover admires his mistress, though she be very 
deformed of herselfe — thin, leane, chitty-face, have clouds in her face, \>q. 
crooked," &c. 

7 Was troubled with a flowing or watering of the eyes, a proneness to 
weep. So, in Hamlet, we have " bisson rheum " for blinding tears. — Con- 
found, again, in the next line, for consume or destroy. See page 40, note 10. 



I06 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT IIL 

What willingly he did confound he wail'd, 
Believe't, till I wept too. 

CcEs. No, sweet Octavia, 

You shall hear from me still ; the time shall not 
Out-go my thinking on you. 

Ant Come, sir, come ; 

I'll wrestle with you in my strength of love : 
Look, here I have you ; thus I let you go, 
And give you to the gods. 

C(Es. Adieu ; be happy ! 

Lep. Let all the number of the stars give light 
To thy fair way ! 

Cces. Farewell, farewell ! ]^Kisses Octavia. 

Ant. Farewell ! 

\Trumpets sound within. Exeunt. 



Scene III. — Alexandria. A Room in Cleopatra's Palace. 

Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Iras, and Alexas. 

Cleo. Where is the fellow? 

Alex. Half afeard to come. 

Cleo. Go to, go to. — 

Enter the Messenger. 

Come hither, sir. 

Alex. Good Majesty, 

Herod of Jewry dare not look upon you 
But when you are well pleased. 

Cleo. That Herod's head 

I'll have : but how, when Antony is gone 
Through whom I might command it ? — Come thou near 



SCENE III. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. lO/ 

Mess. Most gracious Majesty, — 

Cleo. Didst thou behold 

Octavia ? 

Mess. Ay, dread Queen. 

Cleo. Where ? 

Mess. Madam, in Rome ; 

I look'd her in the face, -and saw her led 
Between her brother and Mark Antony. 

Cleo. Is she as tall as me ? 

Mess. She is not, madam. 

^Cleo. Didst hear her speak? is she shrill- tongued oi 
low? 

Mess. Madam, I heard her speak ; she is low-voiced. 

Cleo. That's not so good. — He cannot like her long.) 

Char. Like her ! O Isis ! 'tis impossible. 

Cleo. I think so, Charmian : dull of tongue, and dwarf- 
ish ! — 
What majesty is in her gait? Remember, 
If e'er thou look'dst on majesty. 

Mess. She creeps ; 

Her motion and her station ^ are as one : 
She shows a body rather than a life, 
A statue than a breather. 

Cleo. Is this certain? 

Mess. Or I have no observance. 

Char. Three in Egypt 

Cannot make better note.^ 

Cleo. He's very knowing ; 

1 She is so dull and sleepy of motion that her moving is like her standing 
still. For this use of station see Hamlet, page 159, note 8. 

2 An elliptical expression for " There are not three in Egypt who caq 
make better note." Shakespeare has many such. 



I08 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT III. 

I do perceive't. There's nothing in her yet : 
The fellow has good judgment. 

Char. Excellent. 

Cleo. Guess at her years, I pr'ythee. 

Mess. Madam, 

She was a widow, — 

Cleo. Widow ! — Charmian, hark. 

Mess. — And I do think she's thirty. 

Cleo. Bear'st thou her face in mind? is't long or round? 

Mess. Round even to faultiness. 

Cleo. For th' most part, too, they're foolish that are so.^ 
Her hair, what colour? 

Mess. Brown, madam ; and her forehead 
As low as she would wish it.^ 

Cleo. There's gold for thee. 

Thou must not take my former sharpness ill : 
I will employ thee back again ; I find thee 
Most fit for business : go make thee ready ; 
Our letters are prepared. \_Exil Messenger. 

Char. A proper man. 

Cleo. Indeed, he is so : I repent me much 
That so I harried him.^ Why, methinks, by him. 
This creature's no such thing. 

Char. Nothing, madam. 

Cleo. The man hath seen some majesty, and should know. 

3 So in Hill's Pleasant History, 1613 : " The head ve?y round, to be for- 
getful and foolish." Again : " The head long, to be prudent and wary." 
See, also, The Tempest, page 130, note 53. 

4 This appears to have been a sort of cant phrase. Steevens says, " I 
once overheard a chamber-maid say of her rival, ' that her legs were as 
thick as she could wish them.' " 

5 To harry is to harass, to worry, to use roughly ; from the old Norman- 
French harier of the same meaning. 



SCENE IV. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. IO9 

Char. Hath he seen majesty? Isis else defend, 
And serving you so long ! 

Cleo. I've one thing more to ask him yet, good Char- 
mian : 
But 'tis no matter ; thou shalt bring him to me 
Where I will write. iVll may be well enough. 

Char. I warrant you, madam. \_Exeunt. 

Scene IV. — Athens. A Room in Antony's House. 
Enter Antony and Octavia. 

Ant. Nay, nay, Octavia, not only that, — 
That were excusable, that, and thousands more 
Of semblable imp6rt, — but he hath waged 
New wars 'gainst Pompey ; made his will, and read it 
To public ear : 

Spoke scantly of me : when perforce he could not 
But pay me terms of honour, cold and sickly 
He vented them ; most narrow measure lent me : 
When the best hint was given him, he not took't, 
Or did it from his teeth. ^ 

Oct. O, my good lord, 

Believe not all ; or, if you must believe, 
Stomach^ not all. A more unhappy lady. 
If this division chance, ne'er stood between, 

1 That is, hollowly, or not in earnest, not from the heart ; like our phrase 
" lip-service." So Dryden in his Wild Gallant : " I am confident she is 
only angry from the teeth outward." And Fuller, in his Holie Warre : 
" This bad breath, though it came hut from the teeth of some, yet proceeded 
from the corrupt lungs of others." 

2 Stomach, again, in the sense of anger or resetitment. See page 65, 
note 2. 



I lO ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT III. 

Praying for both parts : 

Sure, the good gods will mock me presently, 

When I shall pray, O, bless my lord and husband ! 

Undo that prayer, by crying out as loud, 

O, bless my brothe?'/ Husband win, win brother, 

Prays, and destroys the prayer ; no midway 

'Twixt these extremes at all. 

Ant Gentle Octavia, 

Let your best love draw to that point which seeks 
Best to preserve it : if I lose mine honour, 
I lose myself; better I were not yours 
Than yours so branchless. But, as you requested, 
Yourself shall go between's : the mean time, lady, 
I'll raise the preparation of a war 
Shall stain your brother.^ Make your soonest haste ; 
So your desires are yours. 

Oct. Thanks to my lord. 

3 In explanation of this passage, and especially of the word stain, Dr. C. 
M. Ingleby gives the following : " Shakespeare's figurative use of the word 
stain, whether substantive or verb, is various. The primary notion is that 
of giving to something a colour from without : this may be a stain of foul- 
ness or otherwise ; and stain may thus mean pollute, pollution ; or, some- 
what more generally, dishonour; and, again, infect, infection, and, finally, 
compromise. In another view, the substantive stain may signify the reverse 
oifoil, as in Venus and Adonis, stanza 2, ' stain to all nymphs,' that is, casting 
their charms into the shade by comparison with Adonis. Antony complains 
to Octavia that her brother has gone to war against Pompey without reason, 
and without his (Antony's) concurrence ; that he has given him (Antony) 
' narrow measure ' in speaking of him. This touches his honour, and he 
therefore declares that, while his wife goes, as reconciler, between the two 
Triumvirs, he will give Caesar a strong motive for making overtures of 
friendship. Compromise would be a dilution of stain, in the sense we believe 
Shakespeare to have intended. Antony's preparation was designed to effect 
a total change in Caesar's purposes and plans ; in fact, to subdue him to 
the quality of Antony's mind ; possibly even to overshadow Caesar, and to 
impress him with the weight of Antony's personal character." 



SCENE V. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. I I I 

The Jove of power make me, most weak, most weak, 
Your reconciler ! Wars 'twixt you twain would be 
As if the world should cleave, and that slain men 
Should solder up the rift.^ 

Ant. When it appears to you where this begins. 
Turn your displeasure that way ; for our faults 
Can never be so equal, that your love 
Can equally move with them. Provide your going ; 
Choose your own company, and command what cost 
Your heart has mind to. \_Exeunt. 

Scene V. — The Same. Another Room in Antony's House. 
Enter Enobarbus and Eros, meeting. 

Eno. How now, friend Eros ! 

Eros. There's strange news come, sir. 

Eno. What, man? 

Eros. Caesar and Lepidus have made wars upon Pompey. 

Eno. This is old : what is the success ? ^ 

Eros. Caesar, having made use of him in the wars 'gainst 
Pompey, presently denied him rivality ; ^ would not let him 
partake in the glory of the action : and, not resting here, ac- 
cuses him of letters he had formerly wrote to Pompey ; upon 
his own appeal,^ seizes him : so the poor third is up, till 
death enlarge his confine. 

^ As you are joint masters of the world, which in your union is united, 
so wars between you give an image of the cleaving of that world, and you 
both endeavouring to solder that cleft with the carcases of those who will 
be slain in the contest. — Heath. 

1 Success for consequence or result ; the Latin sense of the word. 

2 Rivality, here, is partnership, or equality of rank. Shakespeare uses 
the substantive rival in the same sense. See Hamlet, page 46, note 2. 

3 Appeal here means assertion or accusation. Another Latinism. 



112 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT III. 

Eno. Then, world, thou hast a pair of chops, no more ; 
And, throw between them all the food thou hast, 
They'll grind the one the other.* Where's Antony? 

Eros. He's walking in the garden, thus ; and spurns 
The rush that lies before him ; cries Fool Lepidus / 
And threats the throat of that his officer 
That murder'd Pompey. 

Eno. Our great navy's rigg'd. 

Eros. For Italy and Caesar. More, Domitius ; 
My lord desires you presently : my news 
I might have told hereafter. 

Eno. 'Twill be naught j ^ 

But let it be. Bring me to Antony. 

Eros. Come, sir. [Exeunt. 

Scene VI. — Rome. A Room in Cesar's House, 

Enter C/esar, Agrippa, and Mec^nas, 

Cces. Contemning Rome, he has done all this and more 
In Alexandria ; here's the manner oft : 
I' the market-place, on a tribunal i silver'd, 
Cleopatra and himself in chairs of gold 
Were publicly enthroned ; at the feet sat 
Caesarion, whom they call my father's son, 
And all th' unlawful issue that their life 
Since then hath bred between them. Unto her 

4 " a pair of chops " is simply an upper and a lower jaw. No more is 
equivalent to that is all. Enobarbus means that Antony and Caesar, though 
they have all the vi^orld between them to prey upon, will make war on each 
other. 

5 'Twill be bad; naught having the same sense as in naughty. 
1 Tribunal in the Latin sense oi platform or stage. 



SCENE Vi. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. II3 

He gave the stablishment of Egypt ; made her 
Of lower Syria, Cyprus, Lydia, 
Absolute queen. 

Mec. This in the public eye? 

Cces. V the common show-place, where they exercise. 
His sons he there proclaim'd the kings of kings ; 
Great Media, Parthia, and Armenia, 
He gave to Alexander ; to Ptolemy he assigned 
Syria, Cilicia, and Phoenicia : she 
In the habiliments of the goddess Isis 
That day appear'd ; and oft before gave audience, 
As 'tis reported, so. 

Mec, Let Rome be thus 

Inform'd. 

Agr. Who, queasy with his insolence ^ 
Already, will their good thoughts call from him. 

CcBs. The people know it ; and have now received 
His accusations. 

Agr. Who does he accuse? 

Cces. Caesar : and that, having in Sicily 
Sextus Pompeius spoil'd, we had not rated him 
His part o' the isle : then does he say he lent me 
Some shipping unrestored : lastly, he frets 
That Lepidus of the triumvirate 
Should be deposed ; and, being, that we detain 
All his revenue. 

Agr. Sir, this should be answer'd. 

Cces. 'Tis done already, and the messenger gone. 
I've told him, Lepidus was grown too cruel ; 



2 Queasy is sick, nauseated. Insolence here means outlandiskness, aping 
of foreign manners ; like the Latin insolentia. 



114 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT III, 

That he his high authority abused, 

And did deserve his change : for what I've conquer 'd, 

I grant him part ; but then, in his Armenia, 

And other of his conquer'd kingdoms, I 

Demand the like. 

Mec. He'll never yield to that. 

Cces. Nor must not, then, be yielded to in this. 

Enter Octavia with her Train. 

Oct. Hail, Caesar, and my lord ! hail, most dear Caesar ! 

Cces. That ever I should call thee cast-away ! 

Oct. You have not call'd me so, nor have you cause. 

Cces. Why have you stol'n upon us thus ? You come not 
Like Caesar's sister : the wife of Antony 
Should have an army for an usher, and 
The neighs of horse' to tell of her approach 
Long ere she did appear ; the trees by th' way 
Should have borne men ; and expectation fainted, 
Longing for what it had not ; nay, the dust 
Should have ascended to the roof of heaven. 
Raised by your populous troops. But you are come 
A market-maid to Rome ; and have prevented 
The ostentation of our love, which left unshown 
Is often felt unloved : ^ we should have met you 
By sea and land ; supplying every stage 
With an augmented greeting. 

Oct. Good my lord. 

To come thus was I not constrain'd, but did it 
On my free will. My lord, Mark Antony, 

3 Ostentation is showing, display, or manifestation. The Poet has ostent 
repeatedly in the same sense. " Which left unshown " is equivalent to the 
leaving of which unshown. 



SCENE VI. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. II5 

Hearing that you prepared for war, acquainted 
My grieved ear withal ; whereon I begg'd 
His pardon for return. 

Cces. Which soon he granted, 

Being an 6bstruct'* 'tween his lust and him. 

Oct. Do not say so, my lord. 

Cces. I've eyes upon him, 

And his affairs come to me on the wind. 
Where is he now? 

Oct. My lord, in Athens. 

Cces. No, my most wronged sister ; Cleopatra 
Hath nodded him to her. He hath given his empire 
Up to a trull ; who ^ now are levying 
The kings o' the Earth for war : he hath assembled 
Bocchus, the King of Libya ; Archelaus, 
Of Cappadocia ; Philadelphos, King 
Of Paphlagonia \ the Thracian King, Adallas ; 
King Malchus of Arabia ; King of Pont ; 
Herod of Jewry ; Mithridates, King 
Of Comagene ; Polemon and Amyntas, 
The Kings of Mede and Lycaonia, with a 
More larger list of sceptres. 

Oct. Ah me, most wretched, 

That have my heart parted betwixt two friends 
That do afflict each other ! 

Cces. Welcome hither : 

Your letters did withhold our breaking forth. 
Till we perceived both how you were wrong'd, 



* Obstruct for obstruction. Shakespeare has many words shortened in 
the same way ; as suspect, dispose, &c. 

5 Who refers to he and trull: which two persons are levying, &c. 



Il6 • ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT III. 

And we in negligent dan^er.^ Cheer your heart : 

Be you not troubled with the time, which drives 

O'er your content these strong necessities ; 

But let determined things to destiny 

Hold unbewail'd their way. Welcome to Rome ; 

Nothing more dear to me. You are abused 

Beyond the mark of thought ; and the high gods, 

To do you justice, make them ministers 

Of us and those that love you. Best of comfort ; 

And ever welcome to us. 

Agr. Welcome, lady. 

Mec. Welcome, dear madam. 
Each heart in Rome does love and pity you : 
Only th' adulterous Antony, most large 
In his abominations, turns you oif ; 
And gives his potent regiment^ to a trull. 
That noises it against us. 

Oct Is it so, sir? 

Cces. Most certain. Sister, welcome ; pray you. 
Be ever known to patience. My dear'st sister ! \_Exeunt. 

Scene VII. — Antony's Cmnp, near the Proinonto?y of 
Actiuni. 

Enter Cleopatra and Enobarbus. 

Cleo. I will be even with thee, doubt it not. 
Eno. But why, why, why? 

6 Meaning of course, in danger through or from negligence. The Poet 
has many such expressions. See page 67, note 9. 

^ Regiment is government, authority ; he puts his power and his empire 
into the hands of a harlot. Regiment is used for regimen or government by 
most of our ancient writers. See King Richard III., page 183, note 4. 



SCENE VII. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 11/ 

Cleo. Thou hast forspoke i my being in these wars, 
And say'st it is not fit. 

Eno. Well, is it, is it? 

Cleo. Is't not denounced 'gainst us? why should not we 
Be there in person? 

Eno. \Aside7[ Well, I could reply : 
If we should serve with horse' ^ and mares together. 
The horse' were merely lost j the mares would bear 
A soldier and his horse. 

Cleo. What is't you say ? 

Eno. Your presence needs must puzzle Antony ; 
Take fi'om his heart, take fi^om his brain, firom's time. 
What should not thence be spared. He is already 
Traduced for levity ; and 'tis said in Rome 
That Ph6tinus an eunuch and your maids 
Manage this war. 

Cleo. Sink Rome, and their tongues rot 

That speak against us ! A charge we bear i' the war, 
And, as the president of my kingdom, will 
Appear there for a man. Speak not against it ; 
I will not stay behind. 

Eno. Nay, I have done. 

Here comes the Emperor. 

Enter Antony and Canidius. 

Ant. Is it not strange, Canidius, 

That from Tarentum and Brundusium 
He could so quickly cut th' Ionian sea, 
And take-in 3 Toryne? — You have heard on't, sweet? 

1 Forspoke is spoken against or gainsaid ; the prepositive for having the 
same force as in forswear. 

2 Horse' for horses. Often so. See King Henry V., page 124, note 26. 
S Take-in, again, for conquer or subdue. See page 39, note 5. 



Il8 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT III. 

Cleo. Celerity is never more admired 
Than by the negligent. 

Ant. A good rebuke, 

Which might have well becomed the best of men, 
To taunt ^ at slackness. — Canidius, we 
Will fight with him by sea. 

Cleo. By sea ! what else ? 

Can. Why will my lord do so ? 

Ant. For that he dares us to't. 

Eno. So hath my lord dared him to single fight. 

Can. Ay, and to wage this battle at Pharsalia, 
Where Caesar fought with Pompey : but these offers. 
Which serve not for his vantage, he shakes off; 
And so should you. 

Eno. Your ships are not well mann'd ; 

Your mariners are muleteers, reapers, people 
Ingross'd by swift impress ; ^ in Caesar's fleet 
Are those that often have 'gainst Pompey fought : 
Their ships are yare ; ^ yours, heavy. No disgrace 

4 To taunt for in taunting. This gerundial use of the infinitive is very 
frequent, and sometimes renders the sense obscure. 

5 That is, men hastily y^rc^^ into the service, or enrolled by a hasty draft 
or conscription. See i Henry IV., page 156, note 4. 

6 Yare as before explained of yarely ; handy, manageable. See page 76, 
note 29. — Plutarch : " Now Antonius was made so subject to a woman's 
will that, though he was a great deal stronger by land, yet for Cleopatra's 
sake he would needs have this battle tried by sea : though he saw before his 
eyes that, for lack of water-men, his captains did press by force all sorts of 
men out of Greece that they could take up in the field, as travellers, mule- 
teers, reapers, harvest-men, and young boys ; and yet could not sufficiently 
furnish his galleys : so that the most part of them were empty, and could 
scant row, because they lacked water-men enough. But, on the contrary 
side, Caesar's ships were not built for pomp, high and great, only for a sight 
and bravery ; but they were light ofyarage, armed and furnished with water- 
men as many as they needed, and had them all in readiness in the havens 
of Tarentum and Brundusium." 



SCENE VII. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 1 19 

Shall fall you for refusing him at sea, 
Being prepared for land. 

Ant By sea, by sea. 

Eno. Most worthy, sir, you therein throw away 
The absolute soldiership you have by land ; 
Distract your army, which doth most consist 
Of war-mark'd footmen ; leave unexecuted 
Your own renowned knowledge ; quite forego 
The way which promises assurance ; and 
Give up yourself merely to chance and hazard, 
From firm security. 

Ant. I'll fight at sea. 

Cleo. I have full sixty sails, Caesar none better. 

Ant. Our overplus of shipping will we burn ; 
And, with the rest full-mann'd, from th' head of Actium 
Beat the approaching Caesar. But, if we fail, 
We then can do't at land. — 

Enter a Messenger. 

Thy business ? 

Mess. The news is true, my lord ; he is descried ; 
Caesar has taken Toryne. 

Ant. Can he be there in person ? 'tis impossible ; 
Strange that his power should be. — Canidius, 
Our nineteen legions thou shalt hold by land, 
And our twelve thousand Horse. — We'll to our ship : 
Away, my Thetis ! "^ — 



7 Antony may address Cleopatra by the name of this sea-nymph, because 
she had just promised him assistance in his naval expedition ; or perhaps in 
allusion to her voyage down the Cydnus, when she appeared, like Thetis, 
surrounded by the Nereids. 



I20 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT III. 

Enter a Soldier. 

How now, worthy soldier ! ' 

Sold. O noble Emperor, do not fight by sea ; 
Trust not to rotten planks : do you misdoubt 
This sword and these my wounds ? Let the Egyptians 
And the Phoenicians go a- ducking ; we 
Have used to conquer, standing on the earth, 
And fighting foot to foot. 

Ant. Well, well. — Away ! 

\_Exeunt Antony, Cleopatra, and Enobarbus. 

Sold. By Hercules, I think I am i' the right. 

Can. Soldier, thou art ; but his whole action grows 
Not in the power on't : ^ so our leader's led. 
And we are women's men. 

Sold. You keep by land 

The legions and the Horse whole, do you not ? 

Can. Marcus Octavius, Marcus Justeius, 
PubHcola, and Caelius, are for sea ; 
But we keep whole by land. This speed of Caesar's 
Carries beyond behef. 

Sold. While he was yet in Rome, 

His power went out in such distractions ^ as 
Beguiled all spies. 

Can. Who's his lieutenant, hear you? 



8 An obscure phrase ; but meaning, perhaps, " His action proceeds not 
where his power to act is greatest." Or it may refer, not merely to the 
present action, but to Antony's whole course of late, where his action 
grows, takes its shape, not from the power that executes it, that is, himself, 
but from the will of another. 

9 They went out in detachments or separate bodies, and in various direc- 
tions ; a frequent stratagem in war, to disguise the commander's purpose 
and destination. 



SCENE IX. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 121 

Sold. They say, one Taurus. 

Can. Well I know the man. 

Enter a Messenger. 

Mess. The Emperor calls Canidius. 
Can. With news the time's with labour, and throes forth 
Each minute some. \_Exeunt, 



Scene VIII. — A Plain near Actium. 
Enter C^sar, Taurus, Officers, and others. 

Cces. Taurus, — 

Taur. My lord ? 

Cces. Strike not by land ; keep whole : provoke not battle, 
Till we have done at sea. Do not exceed 
The prescript of this scroll : our fortune lies 
Upon this jump.i \_Exeunt. 

Scene IX. — Another Part of the Plain. 

Enter Antony and Enobarbus. 

Ant. Set we our squadrons on yond side o' the hill. 
In eye of Caesar's battle ; ^ from which place 
We may the number of the ships behold, 
And so proceed accordingly. \_Exeunt. 

1 Jump is' risk or hazard. So the verb, in Macbeth : " We'd jump the 
life to come." — " The prescript of this scroll" is the course prescribed by 
this paper of written directions. 

2 Here, as often, datf/e is army, or rather is put for an army ordered in 
readiness for battle. See Julius Ccesar, page 154, note i. 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 



Scene X. — Another Part of the Plain. 

Enter Canidius, marching with his land Army one way ; and 
Taurus, the Lieutenant of C^sar, with his Army^ the other 
way. After their going in, is heard the noise of a sea-fight. 

Alarum. Enter Enobarbus. 

Eno. Naught, naught, all naught ! I can behold no longer : 
Th' Antoniad, the Egyptian admiral,^ 
With all their sixty, fly and turn the rudder : 
To see't '* mine eyes are blasted. 

Enter Scarus. 

Scar. Gods and goddesses, 

All the whole synod of them ! 
I Eno. What's thy passion ? 

Scar. The greater can tie ^ of the world is lost 
With very ignorance ; we have kiss'd away 
Kingdoms and provinces.^ 

Eno. How appears the fight? 

Scar. On our side like the token'd pestilence,^ 
Where death is sure. Yon ribald nag "^ of Egypt, — 

3 Antoniad was the name of Cleopatra's ship. Admiral is, properly, the 
leading ship in a fleet or naval squadron. Hence transferred as a title to 
the ofificer in command. See i King Hen7y IV., page 141, note 4. 

4 " To see it " for at seeing it. Another gerundial infinitive. See page 118, 
note 4. 

5 Cantle is portion, fragment, or corner. See i Henry IV., page 125, 
note 7. 

6 In cases of the plague, the symptoms that betokened death were called 
God's tokens. 

7 Of course the epithet ribald is applied to Cleopatra to express her noto- 
rious profligacy. It seems to me, also, that the Poet meant nag in reference 
to her speedy flight from the battle, carrying Antony off, as it were, on her 



SCENE X. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 123 

Whom leprosy o'ertake ! — i' the midst o' the fight, 
When vantage hke a pair of twins appear'd, 
Both as the same, or rather ours the elder, — 
The breese upon her, like a cow in June,® — 
Hoists sails and flies. 

Eno. That I beheld : 

Mine eyes did sicken at the sight, and could not 
Endure a further view. 

Scar. She once being loof d,^ 

The noble ruin of her magic, Antony, 
Claps on his sea-wing, and, like a doting mallard, 
Leaving the fight in height, flies after her. 
I never saw an action of such shame : 
Experience, manhood, honour, ne'er before 
Did violate so itself 

Eno. Alack, alack ! 

Enter Canidius. 

Can, Our fortune on the sea is out of breath, 
And sinks most lamentably. Had our general 
Been what he knew himself, it had gone well : 
O, he has given example for our flight 

back. And the words, " the breese upon her," and " like a cow in June," 
naturally infer that such was the image intended. — The breese is Xho. gad-fly, 
the summer torment of " the mute creation." 

8 In this line, her refers to cow, not to ribald nag ; the logical order being 
thus : " Like a cow in June, the breese upon her." The two parts of the 
line were transposed for the sake of the metre. 

9 To loof, commonly pronounced and spelt luff, is a sea term, meaning to 
,ply to windward, or to sail before the wind. Shakespeare met with the 
word in Plutarch's description of this fight : " Now, Publicola, seeing 
Agrippa put forth his left wing of Caesars army, to compass in Antonius 
ships, was driven also to loofe off to have more roome, and to go a litle at 
one side to put those further off that were afraid." 



124 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT III. 

Most grossly by his own ! 

Eno. \^Aside^ Ay, are you thereabouts ? 

Why, then good night indeed. ^^ 

Can. Toward Peloponnesus are they fled. 

Scar. 'Tis easy to't ; ii and there I will attend 
What further comes. 

Can. To Caesar will I render 

My legions and my horse : six kings already 
Show me the way of yielding. 

Eno. I'll yet follow 

The wounded chance of Antony, though my reason 
Sits in the wind against me. \_Exeunt. 



Scene XL — Alexandria. A Room in Cleopatra's Palace. 
Enter Antony and Attendants. 

Ant Hark ! the land bids me tread no more upon't j 
It is ashamed to bear me ! — Friends, come hither : 
I am so lated^ in the world, that I 
Have lost my way for ever : I've a ship 
Laden with gold ; take that, divide it j fly, 
And make your peace with Caesar. 

All. Fly! not we. 

Ant. I've fled myself; and have instructed cowards 
To run and show their shoulders. Friends, be gone ; 

10 " If that is what you are thinking about, then our cause is lost, or our 
game is up, sure enough." Enobarbus rightly construes what Canidius has 
just said as an intimation that he is meditating desertion from Antony, 
since Antony has deserted himself. 

11 The passage or march to Peloponnesus is easy. 

1 So belated or benighted. So in Macbeth, iii. 3 : " Now spurs the lated 
traveller apace to gain the timely inn." 



SCENE XI. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 125 

I have myself resolved upon a course 

Which has no need of you ; be gone : 

My treasure's in the harbour, take it. — O, 

I foUow'd that I blush to look upon ! 

My very hairs do mutiny ; for the white 

Reprove the brown for rashness, and they them 

For fear and doting. — Friends, be gone : you shall 

Have letters from me to some friends that will 

Sweep your way for you. Pray you, look not sad. 

Nor make replies of lothness : take the hint 

Which my despair proclaims ; let that be left 

Which leaves itself : to the sea-side straightway ; 

I will possess you of that ship and treasure. 

Leave me, I pray, a little ; pray you now : 

Nay, do so ; for, indeed, I've lost command,^ 

Therefore I pray you : I'll see you by-and-by. [^Sifs down. 

Enter Cleopatra led by Charmmn and Iras ; Y.^os following. 

Eros. Nay, gentle madam, to him, comfort him. 

Iras. Do, most dear Queen. 

Char. Do ! why, what else? 

Cleo. Let me sit down. — O Juno ! 

Ant. No, no, no, no, no. 

Eros. See you here, sir? 

Ant. O fie, fie, fie ! 

Char. Madam, — 

Iras. Madam, O good Empress, — 

Eros. Sir, sir, — 

Ant. Yes, my lord, yes.^ — He at Philippi kept 

2 " I entreat you to leave me, because I have lost all power to command 
your absence." 

3 Here and in his two preceding speeches Antony is muttering to himself 



126 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT III 

His sword e'en like a dancer/ while I struck 

The lean and wrinkled Cassius ; and 'twas I 

That the mad Brutus ended : he alone 

Dealt on heutenantry,^ and no practice had 

In the brave squares of war : yet now — No matter. 

Cleo. Ah, stand by. 

Eros. The Queen, my lord, the Queen ! 

Iras. Go to him, madam, speak to him : 
He is unqualitied with very shame. 

Cleo. Well then, sustain me. — O ! 

Eros. Most noble sir, arise ; the Queen approaches : 
Her head's declined, and death will seize her, but^ 
Your comfort make the rescue. 

Ant. I have offended reputation, — 
A most unnoble swerving. 

Eros. Sir, the Queen. 

Ant. O, whither hast thou led me, Egypt ? See, 
How I convey my shame out of thine eyes 
By looking back what I have left behind "^ 
Stroy'd in dishonour. 

under an overpowering sense of shame. In " Yes, my lord, yes," he is 
referring to Caesar : " Yes, Caesar, you have done me now, and can have 
things all your own way." 

4 The meaning appears to be, that Caesar never offered to draw his sword, 
but kept it in the scabbard, like one who dances with a sword on, which was 
formerly the custom in England. 

5 That is, only fought by proxy, made war by his lieutenants. In Plu- 
tarch's Life of Antony it is said of both Cassar and Antony, that " they were 
always more fortunate when they made warre by their Heutenants than by 
themselves." 

6 But here is what is called the exceptive but, and therefore is equivalent 
to but that or unless. 

7 To look is here used as a transitive verb. Repeatedly so. — Antony is 
supposed to turn his face, mantled as it is with shame, away from Cleopatra. 
See King Henry the Fifth, page 143, note 5. 



SCENE XII. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 12/ 

Cleo. O my lord, my lord, 

Forgive my fearful sails ! I little thought 
You would have follow'd. 

Ant. Egypt, thou knew'st too well 

My heart was to thy rudder tied by th' strings, 
And thou shouldst tow me after ; o'er my spirit 
Thy full supremacy thou knew'st, and that 
Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods 
Command me. 

Cleo. O, my pardon ! 

Ant. Now I must 

To the young man send humble treaties, dodge 
And palter s in the shifts of lowness ; who 
With half the bulk o' the world play'd as I pleased, 
Making and marring fortunes. You did know 
How much you were my conqueror ; and that 
My sword, made weak by my affection, would 
Obey it on all causes. 

Cleo. Pardon, pardon ! 

Ant. Fall not a tear, I say ; one of them rates 
All that is won and lost : give me a kiss ; 
Even this repays me. — We sent our schoolmaster ; 
Is he come back ? — Love, I am full of lead. — 
Some wine, within there, and our viands ! — Fortune knows 
We scorn her most when most she offers blows. \_Exeunt. 

8 To palter is to shuffle or equivocate. So in Macbeth, v. 8: "And be 
these juggling fiends no more believed, ihaX palter with us in a double sense." 



128 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT III. 

Scene XII. — Caesar's Camp in Egypt. 
Enter Caesar, Dolabella, Thyreus, and others. 

Cces. Let him appear that's come from Antony. — 
Know you him ? 

Vol. Caesar, 'tis his schoolmaster : 

An argument that he is pluck'd, when hither 
He sends so poor a pinion of his wing, 
Which had superfluous kings for messengers 
Not many moons gone by. 

Enter Euphronius. 

Cces. Approach, and speak. 

Euph. Such as I am, I come from Antony : 
I was of late as petty to his ends 
As is the morn-dew on the myrtle-leaf 
To the grand sea.^ 

Cces. Be't so : declare thine office. 

Euph. Lord of his fortunes he salutes thee, and 
Requires ^ to live in Egypt : which not granted, 
He lessens his requests ; and to thee sues 
To let him breathe between the heavens and earth, 
A private man in Athens : this for him. 
Next, Cleopatra does confess thy greatness ; 
Submits her to thy might ; and of thee craves 
The circle ^ of the Ptolemies for her heirs, 
Now hazarded to thy Grace. 

1 In " to his ends " and " To the sea," to has the force of compared to, or 
in cofnparison with. A very frequent usage. 

2 To require and to request were formerly synonymous. 

3 The circle here is the crown or diadem. 



SCENE XIII. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 1 29 

CcEs. For Antony, 

I have no ears to his request. The Queen 
Of audience nor desire shall fail, so she 
From Egypt drive her all-disgraced friend, 
Or take his life there : this if she perform. 
She shall not sue unheard. So to them both. 

Euph. Fortune pursue thee ! 

Cces. Bring him through the bands. — 

\_Exit EUPHRONIUS. 

\To Thyreus.] To try thy eloquence, now 'tis time : dispatch ; 

From Antony win Cleopatra : promise, 

And in our name, what she requires ; add more 

Offers from thine invention : women are not 

In their best fortunes strong ; but want will perjure 

The ne'er-touch'd vestal. Try thy cunning, Thyreus ; 

Make thine own edict for thy pains, which we 

Will answer as a law. 

Thyr. C^sar, I go. 

CcEs. Observe how Antony becomes his flaw,* 
And what thou think'st his very action speaks 
In every power that moves. 

Thyr. Caesar, I shall. {^Exeunt. 



Scene XIIL — Alexandria. A Room in Cleopatra's Palace. 

Enter Cleopatra, Enobarbus, Charmian, and Iras. 

Cleo. What shall we do, Enobarbus ? 

Eno. Think, and die.' 

4 How he beUrs himselfm the crack or breach of his fortune. 
1 " Think, and die " is equivalent to grieve ourselves to death. To think 
or to take thought was often used thus. See Julius Ccesar, page 83, note 41. 



130 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT III. 

Cleo. Is Antony or we in fault for this ? 

Eno. Antony only, that would make his will 
Lord of his reason. What though you fled 
From that great face of war, whose several ranges 
Frighted each other ? why should he follow you ? 
The itch of his affection should not then 
Have nick'd his captainship ;^ at such a point, 
When half to half the world opposed, he being 
The mered question : ^ 'twas a shame no less 
Than was his loss, to course your flying flags, 
And leave his navy gazing. 

Cleo. Pr'ythee, peace ! 

Enter Antony and Euphronius. 

Ant. Is that his answer? 

Euph. Ay, my lord. 

Ant. The Queen shall, then, have courtesy, so she 
Will yield us up. 

Euph. He says so. 

Ant. Let her know't. — 

To the boy Caesar send this grizzled head. 
And he will fill thy wishes to the brim 
With principalities. 

2 To nick, as the word is here used, is to disgrace or discredit ; a sense 
that probably grew from the hair of Fools being cut in nicks or notches as a 
badge of their vocation, 

3 Himself being the matter to which the dispute is limited. Mere, some- 
times spelt meare, is used both as a noun and a verb by divers old writers ; 
the verb signifying to bound or limit. So in Spenser's Ruines of Rome : 
" When that brave honour of the Latine name, which mear'd her rule with 
Africa." And in The Faerie Queene, iii. 10 : 

So huge a mind could not in lesser rest, 

Ne in small meares containe his glory great. 



SCENE XIII. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. I3I 

Cleo. That head, my lord ? 

Ant. To him again : tell him he wears the rose 
Of youth upon him ; from which the world should note 
Something particular : his coin, ships, legions, 
May be a coward's ; whose ministers would prevail 
Under the service of a child as soon 
As i' the command of Caesar : I dare him therefore 
To lay his gay caparisons apart. 
And answer me declined,^ sword against sword, 
Ourselves alone. I'll write it : follow me. 

\_Exeunt Antony and Euphronius. 

Eno. \^Aside.'] Yes, like enough, high-battled Caesar will 
Unstate his happiness, and be staged to th' show, 
Against a sworder ! I see men's judgments are 
A parcel of their fortunes ; and things outward 
Do draw the inward quality after them. 
To suffer all alike. That he should dream. 
Knowing all measures, the full Caesar will 
Answer his emptiness ! — Caesar, thou hast subdued 
His judgment too. '■ 

Enter an Attendant. 

Att. A messenger from Cassar. 

Cleo. What, no more ceremony ? — See, my women ! 
Against the blown rose may they stop their noses 
That kneel'd unto the buds. — Admit him, sir. 

\^Exit Attendant. 

4 Declined \s fallen ; " in the decline of my state and fortune." Plutarch : 
Antonius sent again to challenge Caesar to fight with him hand to hand. 
Caesar answered him, that " he had many other ways to die than so." Then 
Antonius, seeing there was no way more honourable for him to die than 
fighting valiantly, determined to set up his rest, both by sea and land." 
Here, " set up his rest " is make a stand. 



132 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT 

Eno. \_Asider\ Mine honesty and I begin to square.^ 
The loyalty well held to fools does make 
Our faith mere folly ; yet he that can endure 
To follow with allegiance a fall'n lord 
Does conquer him that did his master conquer, 
And earns a place i' the story. 

Enter Thyreus. 

Cleo. Caesar's will? 

Thyr. Hear it apart. 

Cleo. None but friends : say boldly. 

Thyi\ So, haply, are they friends to Antony. 

Eno. He needs as many, sir, as Caesar has. 
Or needs not us. If Caesar please, our master 
Will leap to be his friend : for us, you know 
Whose he is we are, and that's Caesar's. 

Thyr. So. — 

Thus, then, thou most renown'd : Caesar entreats, 
Not to consider in what case thou stand'st. 
Further than he is Caesar. 

Cleo. Go on : right-royal ! 

Thyr. He knows that you embraced not Antony 
As you did love, but as you fear'd him. 

Cleo. O ! 

Thyr. The scars upon your honour, therefore, he 
Does pity, as constrained blemishes. 
Not as deserved. 

Cleo. He's a god, and knows 

What is most right : mine honour was not yielded. 
But conquer'd merely. 

5 Square, again, for quarrel, ox fall at odds. See page 64, note 8. 



SCENE XIII. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 1 33 

Eno. \_Aside7^ To be sure of that, 

I will ask Antony. — Sir, sir, thou art so leaky. 
That we must leave thee to thy sinking, for 
Thy dearest quit thee. \_Exit, 

TJiyr. Shall I say to Caesar 

What you require of him ? for he partly begs 
To be desired to give. It much would please him, 
That of his fortunes you should make a staff 
To lean upon ; but it would warm his spirits. 
To hear from me you had left Antony, 
And put yourself under his shroud, who is 
The universal landlord. 

Cleo. What's your name ? 

Thyr. My name is Thyreus. 

Cleo. Most kind messenger. 

Say to great Caesar this : In deputation ^ 
I kiss his conquering hand ; tell him, I'm prompt 
To lay my crown at's feet, and there to kneel j 
Tell him, from's all-obeying breath "^ I hear 
The doom of Egypt. 

Thyr. 'Tis your noblest course. 

Wisdom and fortune combating together, 
If that the former dare but what it can. 
No chance may shake it. Give me grace ^ to lay 
My duty on your hand. 

Cleo. Your Caesar's father oft. 

When he hath mused of taking kingdoms in, 
Bestow'd his lips on that unworthy place, 

6 Kiss his hand by proxy, through you as deputy. 

7 Breath, that is, voice, which all obey. As often, the active form in a 
passive sense ; obeying for obeyed. See Winter s Tale, page 134, note 56. 

8 " Give me grace " is grant me the favour. 



134 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT III, 

As it rain'd kisses. 

Re-enter Antony and Enobarbus. 

Ant. Favours, by Jove that thunders ! — 

What art thou, fellow ? 

Thyr. One that but performs 

The bidding of the fullest man, and worthiest 
To have command obey'd. 

Eno. \_Aside^ You will be whipp'd. 

Ant. Approach, there ! — Ah, you kite ! — Now, gods and 
devils ! 
Authority melts from me : of late, when I cried Ho / 
Like boys unto a muss,^ kings would start forth. 
And cry Your will? — Have you no ears ? I am 
Antony yet. 

Enter Attendants. 

Take hence this Jack,i^ and whip him. 

Eno. \_Aside^ 'Tis better playing with a lion's whelp 
Than with an old one dying. 

Ant. Moon and stars ! 

Whip him. Were't twenty of the greatest tributaries 
That do acknowledge Caesar, should I find them 
So saucy with the hand of she here, — what's her name, 
Since she was Cleopatra? Whip him, fellows. 
Till, like a boy, you see him cringe his face. 
And whine aloud for mercy : take him hence. 

9 A muss is a scramble. So Dryden in his Prologue to Widow Ranter : 

Bauble and cap no sooner are thrown down, 
Than there's a vtuss of more than half the town. 

10 Jack was a common name of reproval or contempt, like rogue or knave. 
So the Poet has " flouting Jack," " swearing Jack," " bragging Jacks," and 
" insinuating Jacks." 



SCENE XIII. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 1 35 

Thyr. Mark Antony, — 

Ant. Tug him away ; being whipp'd, 

Bring him again : this Jack of Caesar's shall 
Bear us an errand to him. — 

\_Exeunt Attendants with Thyreus. 
You were half blasted ere I knew you. Ha ! 
Have I my pillow left unpress'd in Rome, 
Forborne the blessing of a lawful race, 
And by a gem of women, to be abused 
By one that looks on feeders ? ^ 

Cleo. Good my lord, — 

Ant. You have been a boggier ever : 
But when we in our viciousness grow hard, — 
O misery on't ! — the wise gods seeP^ our eyes ; 
In our own filth dark our clear judgments ; make us 
Adore our errors ; laugh at's, while we strut 
To our confusion. 

Cleo. O, is't come to this? 

Ant. I found you as a morsel cold upon 
Dead Caesar's trencher ; nay, you were a fragment 
Of Cnaeus Pompey's ; and I am sure, 
Though you can guess what temperance should be. 
You know not what it is. 

Cleo. Wherefore is this ? 

11 Feeders for menials. Servants are called eaters and feeders by several 
of our old dramatic writers. Morose, in the Silent Woman of Ben Jonson, 
says, " Where are all my eaters, my mouths, now ? Bar up my doors, you 
varlets." Thus also in Fletcher's Nice Valour, iii. i : " Servants he has, 
lusty XdXX feeders!' 

12 To seel was a term in falconry for closing up the eyes of a hawk ; which 
was done by sewing the eyelids together. It is said that, when a hawk was 
let go in that condition, the poor bird would soar directly upwards, and 
keep soaring higher and higher, till it dropped down dead. 



136 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT UL 

Ant. To let a fellow that will take rewards, 
And say God quit^'^ youl be familiar with 
My playfellow, your hand ; this kingly seal 
And phghter of high hearts ! O, that I were 
Upon the hill of Basan,^^ to outroar 
The horned herd ! for I have savage cause ; 
And to proclaim it civilly, were like 
A halter'd neck which does the hangman thank 
For being yare about him. 

Re-enter Attendants with Thyreus. 

Is he whipp'd? 

I Att. Soundly, my lord. 

Ant. Cried he ? and begg'd he pardon ? 

I Att. He did ask favour. 

Ant. If that thy father live, let him repent 
Thou wast not made his daughter ; and be thou sorry 
To follow Caesar in his triumph, since 
Thou hast been whipp'd for following him : henceforth 
The white hand of a lady fever thee. 
Shake thou to look on't. Get thee back to Caesar, 
Tell him thy entertainment : look thou say 
He makes me angry with him ; for he seems 
Proud and disdainful, harping on what I am, 
Not what he knew I was : he makes me angry ; 

13 Shakespeare very often uses quit for requite. 

14 The Psalter, xxii. 12 : " Many oxen are come about me ; fat bulls of 
Basan close me in on every side." It seems rather odd to hear Antony 
drawing allusions out of the Psalms; but Shakespeare has many such 
anachronisms. And, after all, why not ? To be sure, the old Romans 
might not have understood the allusion very well ; but then Shakespeare 
did not write for them. 



SCENE XIII. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 13/ 

And at this time most easy 'tis to do't, 

When my good stars, that were my former guides, 

Have empty left their orbs,^^ and shot their fires 

Into th' abysm of Hell. If he mislike 

My speech and what is done, tell him he has 

Hipparchus, my enfranched bondman, whom 

He may at pleasure whip, or hang, or torture. 

As he shall Hke, to quit me : urge it thou : 

Hence with thy stripes, be gone ! \_Exit Thyreus. 

Cko. Have you done yet? 

Anf. Alack, our terrene Moon 

Is now eclipsed ; and it portends alone 
The fall of Antony ! 

Cleo. I must stay his time. 

Anf. To flatter Caesar, would you mingle eyes 
With one that ties his points P^^ 

Cko. Not know me yet? 

Ant. Cold-hearted toward me ! 

Cko. Ah, dear, if I be so, 

From my cold heart let Heaven engender hail. 
And poison it in the source ; and the first stone 
Drop in my neck : as it determines,!'^ so 
Dissolve my life ! The next Csesarion i^ smite ! 
Till, by degrees, the memory of my womb, 
Together with my brave Egyptians all. 
By the discandying ^^ of this pelleted storm, 

15 Orbs for orbits. Shakespeare has the word repeatedly so. 

16 Points means the laces formerly used for fastening the dress. 
1'^ As the hailstone dissolves or wastes away. 

18 Csesarion was Cleopatra's son by Julius Cassar. 

19 Discandying signifies melting out of a candied, that is, crystallized, 
state. The word occurs again later in the play. — A pellet is a little ball; 
so that a " pelleted storm " is a storm of bullets. 



138 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT in. 

Lie graveless, till the flies and gnats of Nile 
Have buried them for prey I^o 

Ant I'm satisfied. 

Caesar sits down in Alexandria ; where 
I will oppose his fate. Our force by land 
Hath nobly held ; our sever'd navy too 
Have knit again, and fleet,^! threatening most sea-like. — 
Where hast thou been, my heart ? — Dost thou hear, lady ? 
If from the field I shall return once more 
To kiss these lips, I will appear in blood ; 
I and my sword will earn our chronicle : 
There's hope in't yet. 

Cleo. That's my brave lord ! 

Ant. I will be treble-sinew'd, hearted, breathed,^^ 
And fight maliciously : for, when mine hours 
Were nice ^^ and lucky, men did ransom lives 
Of me for jests ; but now I'll set my teeth. 
And send to darkness all that stop me. — Come, 
Let's have one other gaudy night : ^^ call to me 
All my sad captains, fill our bowls ; once more 
Let's mock the midnight bell. 

Cko. It is my birth-day : 

I had thought t' have held it poor ; but, since my lord 

20 We have a like expression in Macbeth, iii. 4 : " Our monuments shall 
be the maws of kites." 

21 To Jleet and io Jloat vfexe. anciently synonymous. 

22 Breathed is exercised. Repeatedly so. See Hamlet, page 222, note 39. 

23 Shakespeare uses nice in various senses. Here it means delicate, easy, 
smooth, or wanton. 

24 Feast days in the colleges of either University are called gaudy days, 
as they were formerly in the Inns-of-Court. " From gaudium," says Blount, 
" because, to say truth, they are days of joy, as bringing good cheer to the 
hungry students." 



SCENE XIII. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 1 39 

Is Antony again, I will be Cleopatra. 

Ant. We will yet do well. 

Cleo. Call all his noble captains to my lord. 

Ant. Do so, we'll speak to them ; and to-night I'll force 
The wine peep through their scars. — Come on, my Queen ; 
There's sap in't yet.^^ The next time I do fight, 
I'll make death love me ; for I will contend ^6 
Even with his pestilent scythe. \_Exeunt all but Enobarbus. 

Eno. Now he'll outstare the lightning. To be furious. 
Is to be frighted out of fear ; and in that mood 
The dove will peck the estridge. I see still, 
A diminution in our captain's brain 
Restores his heart.^^ When valour preys on reason, 

25 " There's sap in't yet " means the same as the phrase used a little 
before, " There's hope in't yet." Elsewhere the Poet has, " There's life in 
it " in the same sense. 

26 Contend, here, is emulate, rival, or compete. — Shakespeare repays, more 
than a hundredfold, what he borrowed in this scene. The Plutarchian basis 
of it is as follows : " Therewithal he sent Thyreus, one of his men, unto her, 
a very wise and discreet man. He was longer in talk with her than any 
man else was, and the Queen herself also did him great honour; insomuch 
as he made Antonius jealous of him. Whereupon Antonius caused him to 
be taken and soundly whipped, and so sent him unto Caesar ; and bade 

. him tell him, that he made him angry with him, because he showed himself 
proud and disdainful towards him ; and now specially, when he was easy to 
be angered by reason of his present misery. ' To be short, if this mislike 
thee," said he, ' thou hast Hipparchus, one of my enfranchised bondmen 
with thee : hang him, if thou wilt, or whip him at thy pleasure, that we may 
cry quittance.' From henceforth Cleopatra, to clear herself of the suspicion 
he had of her, made more of him than ever she did. For, first of all, whereas 
she did solemnize the day of her birth very meanly and sparingly, fit for her 
present misfortune, she now in contrary manner did keep it with such 
solemnity that she exceeded all measure of sumptuousness and magnifi- 
cence ; so that the guests that were bidden to the feasts came poor, and went 
away rich," 

27 Heart for courage. A similar thought, though put conversely, occurs 
in Cymieline, iv. 2 : " For the act of judgment is oft the cause of fear" 



I40 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT IV. 

It eats the sword it fights with. I will seek 

Some way to leave him. \_Exit. 



ACT IV. 



Scene I. — Cesar's Camp at Alexandria. 

Enter Caesar, reading a letter ; Agrippa, Mecenas, and 
others. 

Cces. He calls me boy, and chides, as he had power 
To beat me out of Egypt ; my messenger 
He hath whipp'd with rods ; dares me to personal combat, 
Caesar to Antony. Let the old ruffian know 
I've many other ways to die ; i meantime 
Laugh at his challenge. 

Mec. Caesar, we must think, 

When one so great begins to rage, he's hunted 
Even to falling. Give him no breath, but now 
Make boot^ of his distraction : never anger 
Made good guard for itself. 

Cces. Let our best heads 

Know, that to-morrow the last of many battles 
We mean to fight. Within our files there are, 
Of those that served Mark Antony but late, 
Enough to fetch him in. See it be done : 



1 The passage of North's Plutarch on which this is founded is equivo- 
cally expressed. See page 131, note 4. But Plutarch's true meaning is, that 
"Antony has many other ways to die." 

2 Boot is advantage ox profit. " Make capital" we should say. 



SCENE II. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. I4I 

And feast the army ; we have store to do't, 

And they have earn'd the waste.^ Poor Antony ! \Exeunt, 

Scene II. — Alexandria. A Room in Cleopatra's Palace. 

Enter Antony, Cleopatra, Enobarbus, Charmmn, Iras, 
Alexas, and others. 

Ant. He will not fight with me, Domitius. 

Eno. No. 

Ant. Why should he not? 

Eno. He thinks, being twenty times of better fortune, 
He's twenty men to one. 

Ant. To-morrow, soldier, 

By sea and land I'll fight : or I will live. 
Or bathe my dying honour in the blood 
Shall make it live again. Woo't thou fight well? 

Eno. I'll strike, and cry Take all.^ 

Ant. Well said ; come on. — 

Call forth my household servants : let's to-night 
Be bounteous at our meal. — 

Enter Servants. 

Give me thy hand. 
Thou hast been rightly honest ; — so hast thou ; — 
And thou, — and thou, — and thou : — you've served me 

well, 
And kings have been your fellows. 

Cleo. [^Aside to Eno.] What means this? 

Eno. \_Aside to Cleo.] 'Tis one of those odd tricks which 
sorrow shoots 

3 The waste here means the expense, the cost. 

4 Let the survivor take all: no composition; victory or death. 



142 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT IV. 

Out of the mind. 

Ant. And thou art honest too. 

I wish I could be made so many men, 
And all of you clapp'd up together in 
An Antony, that I might do you service 
So good as you've done me. 

Servants. The gods forbid ! 

Ant. Well, my good fellows, wait on me to-night : 
Scant not my cups ; and make as much of me 
As when mine empire was your fellow too, 
And suffer'd my command. 

Cleo. \_Aside to Eno.] What does he mean? 

Eno. \Aside to Cleg.] To make his followers weep. 

Ant. Tend me to-night ; 

May be it is the period of your duty : 
Haply you shall not see me more ; or if, 
A mangled shadow : perchance to-morrow 
You'll serve another master. I look on you 
As one that takes his leave. Mine honest friends, 
I turn you not away ; but, like a master 
Married to your good service, stay till death : 
Tend me to-night two hours, I ask no more, 
And the gods yield you ^ for't ! 

Eno. What mean you, sir, 

To give them this discomfort ? Look, they weep ; 
And I, an ass, am onion-eyed : for shame. 
Transform us not to women ! 

Ant. Ho, ho, ho ! 

Now the witch take me, if I meant it thus ! 
Grace grow where those drops fall ! My hearty friends, 

5 " The go&s yield you " is the gods reward you. A frequent usage. 



SCENE III. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. I43 

You take me in too dolorous a sense : 

I spake t' you for your comfort ; did desire you 

To burn this night with torches : know, my hearts, 

I hope well of to-morrow ; and will lead you 

Where rather I'll expect victorious Hfe 

Than death and honour. Let's to supper, come, 

And drown consideration. \_Exeunf. 



Scene III. — The Same. Before Cleopatra's Palace, 
Enter two Soldiers to their guard. 

1 Sold. Brother, good night : to-morrow is the day. 

2 Sold. It will determine one way : fare you well. 
Heard you of nothing strange about the streets ? 

1 Sold. Nothing. What news ? 

2 Sold. Belike 'tis but a rumour. Good night to you. 

1 Sold. Well, sir, good night. 

Enter two other Soldiers. 

2 Sold. Soldiers, have careful watch. 

J Sold. And you. Good night, good night. 

\The first and second go to their posts. 
4 Sold. Here we: \The third and fourth go to their posts ^ 
and, if to-morrow 
Our navy thrive, I have an absolute hope 
Our landmen will stand up. 

3 Sold. 'Tis a brave army. 

And full of purpose. \_Music as of hautboys underground, 

4 Sold. Peace ! what noise ? 

1 Sold. List, list ! 

2 Sold. Hark! 



144 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT IV. 

I Sold. Music i' the air. 

J Sold. Under the earth. 

4 Sold. It signs well/ does it not ? 

3 Sold. No. 

1 Sold. Peace, I say ! 
What should this mean ? 

2 Sold. 'Tis the god Hercules, who Antony loved. 
Now leaves him. 

1 Sold. Walk ; let's see if other watchmen 

Do hear what we do? \They advance to another post. 

2 Sold. How now, masters ! 

Soldiers. [Speaking together.'] How now ! 

How now ! do you hear this ? 

I Sold. Ay ; is't not strange ? 

J Sold. Do you hear, masters? do you hear? 

I Sold. Follow the noise so far as we have quarter ; ^ 
Let's see how't will give off.^ 

Soldiers. [Speaking together.'] Content. 'Tis strange. 

[Exeunt. 

1 Meaning it bodes well, or it is a good sign ; auspicious. 

2 Sentinels on guard have each their particular beat, as it is called, that 
is, space of ground, or quarter, assigned them, and are not allowed to pass 
beyond it. 

3 That is, how it will terminate, or what sort of a finale it will have. — 
Plutarch : " Being at supper, he commanded his officers and household 
servants that waited on him at his board, that they should fill his cups full, 
and make as much of him as they could. ' For,' said he, ' you know not 
whether you shall do so much for me to-morrow or not, or whether you 
shall serve another master ; and it may be that you shall see me no more, 
but a dead body." This notwithstanding, perceiving that his friends fell 
a-weeping to hear him say so, to salve that he had spoken, he added this 
more unto it, that he would not lead them to battle, where he thought not 
rather safely to return with victory than valiantly to die with honour. Fur- 
thermore, the self-same night, within a little of midnight, when all the city 
was quiet, full of fear and sorrow, thinking what would be issue and end 



SCENE IV. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 145 

Scene IV. — The Same. A Room in Cleopatra's Palace. 
Enter Antony and Cleopatra, Charml^, Iras, and others 



Ant. Eros ! mine armour, Eros ! 

Cko. Sleep a little. 

Ant. No, my chuck.i — Eros, come ; mine armour, Eros ! 

Enter Eros with Armour. 

Come, my good fellow, put mine iron on : 
If fortune be not ours to-day, it is 
Because we brave her : ^ come. 

Cko. Nay, I'll help too. 

What's this for? 

Ant. Ah, let be, let be ! thou art 

The armourer of my heart : false, false ; this, this. 

Cko. Sooth, la, I'll help : thus it must be. 

Ant. Well, well ; 

We shall thrive now. — See'st thou^ my good fellow ? 
Go put on thy defences. 

of this war, it is said that suddenly they heard a marvellous sweet harmony 
of sundry sorts of instruments of music, with the cry of a multitude of 
people, as they had been dancing, and had sung, as they use in Bacchus' 
feasts, with movings and turnings after the manner of the Satyrs ; and it 
seemed that this dance went through the city unto the gate that opened to 
the enemies, and that all the troop, that made the noise they heard, went 
out of the city at the gate. Now, such as in reason sought the depth of the 
interpretation of this wonder thought that it was the god unto whom Anto- 
nius bare singular devotion to counterfeit and resemble him, that did for- 
sake them," 

1 Chuck was a common term of playful or familiar endearment ; a cor- 
ruption, or another form, of chick or chicken. 

2 That is, treat her with bravado ; throw defiance in her face. Often so. 



146 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT IV. 

Eros. Briefly,^ gir. 

Cleo, Is not this buckled well ? 

Ant. Rarely, rarely : 

He that unbuckles this, till we do please 
To daff 't for our repose, shall hear a storm. — 
Thou fumblest, Eros ; and my Queen's a squire 
More tight ^ at this than thou : dispatch. — O love. 
That thou couldst see my wars to-day, and knew'st 
The royal occupation ! thou shouldst see 
A workman in't. — 

Enter an armed Soldier. 

Good morrow to thee ; welcome ! 
Thou look'st like him that knows a warlike charge : 
To business that we love we rise betime, 
And go to't with delight. 

Sold. A thousand, sir, 

Early though't be, have on their riveted trim, 
And at the port expect you. 

[^Shout and flourish of trumpets within. 

Enter a Captain and Soldiers. 

Capt. The morn is fair. — Good morrow, general. 
All. Good morrow, general. 

Ant. 'Tis well blown,^ lads : 

This morning, like the spirit of a youth 

3 Briefly here, is quickly ; a frequent usage. See Macbeth, p. 93, note 53. 

■* Tight is handy, adroit. So in Fletcher's Fair Maid of the Inn, ii. 2 : 
" But, my dear jewstrump, for thou art but my instrument, I am the plotter, 
and when we have cozened 'em most tightly, thou shalt steal away the inn- 
keeper's daughter." 

5 Referring to the morning or the day ; the metaphor being implied of 
night blossoming into day. 



SCENE V. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 147 

That means to be of note, begins betimes. — 
So, so ; come, give me that : this way ; well said.^ — 
Fare thee well, dame, whate'er becomes of me. 
This is a soldier's kiss : \^Xisses ker.'] rebukable, 
And worthy shameful check it were, to stand 
On more mechanic compliment ; I'll leave thee 
Now, like a man of steel. — You that will fight, 
Follow me close ; I'll bring you to't. — Adieu. 

\_Exeunt Antony, Eros, Captain, and Soldiers. 

Char. Please you, retire you to your chamber. 

Cleo. Lead me. 

He goes forth gallantly. That he and Csesar might 
Determine this great war in single fight ! 
Then, Antony, — but now — Well, on. \_Exeunt. 



Scene V. — Antony's Camp near Alexandria. 

Trumpets sound within. Enter Antony and Eros ; a Soldier 
meeting them. 

Sold. The gods make this a happy i day to Antony ! 

Ant. Would thou and those thy scars had once prevail'd 
To make me fight at land ! 

Sold. Hadst thou done so, 

The kings that have revolted, and the soldier 
That has this morning left thee, would have still 
Follow'd thy heels. 

Ant. Who's gone this morning? 

Sold. Who ! 

6 The Poet often uses well said with the sense of well done. 
1 Happy in the sense of propitious or fortunate; like the Latin felix 
Frequent. 



148 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT IV. 

One ever near thee : call for Enobarbus, 

He shall not hear thee ; or from Caesar's camp 

Say / am none of thine. 

Ant. What say'st thou ? 

Sold. Sir, 

He is with Caesar. 

Eros. Sir, his chests and treasure 

He has not with him. 

Ant. Is he gone ? 

Sold. Most certain. 

Ant. Go, Eros, send his treasure after ; ^ do it ; 
Detain no jot, I charge thee : write to him • — 
I will subscribe — gentle adieus and greetings ; 
Say that I wish he never find more cause 
To change a master. O, my fortunes have 
Corrupted honest men ! Dispatch. — Enobarbus ! ^ 

\Exeunt. 

Scene VI. — Cesar's Camp before Alexandria. 

Flourish. Enter Caesar with Agrippa, Enobarbus, and others. 

Cces. Go forth, Agrippa, and begin the fight : 
Our will is Antony be took alive ; 

2 Plutarch represents this as having occurred before the battle of Actium : 
" Furthermore, he dealt very friendly and courteously with Domitius, and 
against Cleopatra's mind. For, he being sick of an ague when he went and 
took a little boat to go unto Caesar's camp, Antonius was very sorry for it ; 
but yet he sent after him all his baggage, train and men : and the same 
Domitius, as though he gave him to understand that he repented his open 
treason, died immediately after." 

3 It may be needful to explain, that dispatch is addressed to Eros, for 
hastening the work just committed to him; and that Enobarbus/ is an 
exclamation of grief and surprise, or wonder, at the desertion of his friend. 



SCENE VI. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. I49 

Make it so known. 

Agr. Caesar, I shall. \_Exit. 

CcBs. The time of universal peace is near : 
Prove this a prosperous day, the three-nook'd world 
Shall bear the olive freely.^ 

Enter a Messenger. 

Mess. Antony 

Is come into the field. 
f CcBs. Go charge AgTippa 

Plant those that have revolted in the van, 
That Antony may seem to spend his fury 
Upon himself. \_Exeiint all but Enobarbus. 

Eno. Alexas did revolt, and went to Jewry on 
Affairs of Antony ; there did persuade 
Great Herod to incline himself to Caesar, 
And leave his master Antony : for this pains 
Caesar hath hang'd him. Canidius, and the rest 
That fell away, have entertainment, but 
No honourable trust. I have done ill ; 
Of which I do accuse myself so sorely. 
That I will joy no more. 

Enter a Soldier of Cesar's. 

Sold. Enobarbus, Antony 

Hath after thee sent all thy treasure, with 



1 " The three-nook' d world " is " the three-corjier' d world." So in King 
John : " Come the three corners of the world in arms, and we shall shock 
them." How the world came to be thus spoken of as having three corners 
only, has not been satisfactorily explaijied. Such, however, was the usage 
of the time. — The Poet elsewhere refers to the olive as the symbol oi peace. 
So in 2 Henry IV., iv. 4 : " But peace puts forth her olive everywhere." 



150 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT IV. 

His bounty overplus : the messenger 
Came on my guard ; ^ and at thy tent is now- 
Unloading of his mules. 

Eno. I give it you. 

Sold. Mock not, Enobarbus. 
I tell you true : best that you safed the bringer ^ 
Out of the host ; I must attend mine office, 
Or would have done't myself. Your Emperor 
Continues still a Jove. {Exit 

Eno, I am alone the villain of the Earth, 
And feel I am so most. — O Antony, • 
Thou mine of bounty, how wouldst thou have paid 
My better service, when my turpitude 
Thou dost so crown with^ gold ! This blows ^ my heart : 
If swift thought break it not, a swifter mean 
Shall outstrike thought ; but thought will do't, I feel. 
I fight against thee ! No : I will go seek 
Some ditch wherein to die ; the foul'st best fits 
My latter part of life. ^ \_Exit 

2 On was often used where we should use in. So " on my guard " is the 
same as in or under my guard. 

3 That is, get him off safe. We have a similar instance in i. 3 : " And 
that which most with you should safe my going." 

* "This generosity Jw^/Zs- my heart, so that it will quickly break, through 
grief." Blown is used for puffed or swelled in the last scene : " On her 
breast there is a vent of blood, and something blown." Thought here also 
signifies grief. See page 129, note 1. 



SCENE VII. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 1 5 1 

Scene VII. — Field of Battle between the Camps. 

Alarums. Drums and trumpets. Enter Agrippa and others, 

Agr. Retire, we have engaged ourselves too far : 
Caesar himself has work, and our oppression i 
Exceeds what we expected. \_Exeunt, 

Alarums. Enter Antony, and Scarus wounded. 

Scar. O my brave Emperor, this is fought indeed ! 
Had we done so at first, we had driven them home 
With clouts about their heads .^ 

Ant. Thou bleed'st apace. 

Scar. I had a wound here that was like a T, 
But now 'tis made an H.^ 

Ant. They do retire. 

Scar. We'll beat 'em into bench-holes : I have yet 
Room for six scotches ^ more. 

Enter Eros. 

Eros. They're beaten, sir ; and our advantage serves 
For a fair victory. 

Scar. Let us score their backs, 

And snatch 'em up, as we take hares, behind : 
'Tis sport to maul a runner. 

1 The force by which we are oppressed or overpowered. 

2 Meaning with sore heads ; clouts being used for cloths, such as wounds 
are dressed with. 

3 In Shakespeare's time the word ache was pronounced like the letter 
H ; which is the turning-point of the quibble in this case. — Why the 
wound is described as " like a T " I am unable to explain. See The 
Tempest, page 68, note 87. 

4 Scotches is cuts. So in Macbeth : " We have but scotch d the snake, not 
kilVd it." 



152 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT IV, 

Ant I will reward .thee 

Once for thy spritely comfort, and tenfold 
For thy good valour. Come thee on. 

Scar. I'll halt after. 

\ >^ ^ > \_Exetmt. 

Scene VIII. — Under the Walls of Alexandria. 
Alarums. Enter ks^owi, marching; Scarus, and Forces. 

Ant. We've beat him to his camp. — Run one before, 
And let the Queen know of our gests.^ — To-morrow, 
Before the Sun shall see's, we'll spill the blood 
That has to-day escaped. I thank you all ; 
For doughty-handed are you, and have fought. 
Not as you served the cause, but as't had been 
Each man's like mine ; you've shown all Hectors. Go, 
Enter the city, clip your wives, your friends, 
Tell them your feats ; whilst they with joyful tears 
Wash the congealment from your wounds, and kiss 
The honour'd gashes whole. — \To Scarus.] Give me thy 
hand; 

Enter Cleopatra, attended. 

To this great fairy ^ I'll commend thy acts, 

Make her thanks bless thee. — \To Cleo.] O thou day o' the 

world. 
Chain mine arm'd neck ; leap thou, attire and all. 
Through proof of harness "^ to my heart, and there 

5 Gests is deeds, exploits ; like the Latin gesta. 

6 Fairy, in former times, did not signify only a diminutive imaginary 
being, but an enchanter ; in which sense it is used here, 

■^ " Proof of harness " is harness that is proof against warlike weapons. 
The Poet repeatedly uses harness for armour. 



SCENE VIII. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 1 53 

Ride on the pants triumphing ! 

Cleo. Lord of lords ! 

O infinite virtue, comest thou smiling from 
The world's great snare uncaught? 

Ant. My nightingale, 

We've beat them to their beds. What, girl ! though gray 
Do something mingle with our younger brown, yet ha' we 
A brain that nourishes our nerves, and can 
Get goal for goal of youth.^ Behold this man ; 
Commend unto his lips thy favouring hand : — 
Kiss it, my warrior : — he hath fought to-day 
As if a god, in hate of mankind, had 
Destroy'd in such a shape. 

Cleo. I'll give thee, friend, 

An armour all of gold ; it was a king's. 

Ant. He has deserved it, were it carbuncled 
Like holy Phoebus' car. Give me thy hand : 
Through Alexandria make a jolly march ; 
Bear our hack'd targets like the men that owe them : ^ 
Had our great palace the capacity 
To camp this host, we all would sup together, 
And drink carouses to the next day's fate, 
Which promises royal peril. — Trumpeters, 

8 At all plays of barriers, the boundary is called a goal : so that to win 
a goal is to be superior in a trial of activity. 

9 The meaning is, " our targets which are hacked as the men are who 
own them." The poet has many such inversions. — ■ The Plutarchian basis 
of this fine scene is as follows : " So Caesar came and pitched his camp 
hard by the city, in the place where they run and manage their horses. 
Antonius made a sally upon him, and fought very valiantly, so that he drave 
Cassar's horsemen back, fighting with his men into their camp. Then he 
came again to the palace, greatly boasting of this victory, and sweetly kissed 
Cleopatra, armed as he was when he came from the fight, recommending 
one of his men-of-arms unto her, that had valiantly fought in this skirmish. 



154 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT IV- 

With brazen din blast you the city's ear ; 

Make mingle with our ratthng tabourines ; 

That heaven and earth may strike their sounds together, 

Applauding our approach. \_Exeunf. 



Scene IX. — Cesar's Camp. 
Sentinels at i 



1 Sold. If we be not relieved within this hour, 
We must return to th' court- of-guard : ^ the night 
Is shiny ; and they say we shall embattle 

By th' second hour i' the morn. 

2 Sold. This last day was 
A shrewd one to's. 

Enter Enobarbus. 

Eno. O, bear me witness, night, — 

3 Sold. What man is this ! 

2 Sold. Stand close, and list him. 

Eno. — Be witness to me, O thou blessed Moon, 
When men revolted shall upon rec6rd 
Bear hateful memory, poor Enobarbus did 
Before thy face repent ! — 

I Sold. Enobarbus ! 

3 Sold. Peace ! hark further. 

Eno. — O sovereign mistress of true melancholy,^ 



Cleopatra, to reward his manliness, gave him an armour and head-piece of 
clean gold: howbeit the man-at-arms, when he had received this rich gift, 
stole away by night, and went to Caesar." 

1 The court-of-guard is the place where the guard or sentinels muster. 

2 The " sovereign mistress of true melancholy " is, I suppose, the Moon, 



SCENE IX. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. I55 

The poisonous damp of night disponge upon me, 

That life, a very rebel to my will. 

May hang no longer on me : throw my heart 

Against the flint and hardness of my fault ; 

Which, being dried with grief, will break to powder, 

And finish all foul thoughts. — O Antony, 

Nobler than my revolt is infamous, 

Forgive me in thine own particular ; 

But let the world rank me in register 

A master-leaver and a fugitive : 

O Antony ! O Antony ! [Dies. 

2 Sold. Let's speak to him. 

I Sold. Let's hear him, for the things he speaks 
May concern Csesar. 

3 Sold. Let's do so. But he sleeps. 

1 Sold. Swoons rather ; for so bad a prayer as his 
Was never yet for sleep. 

2 Sold. Go we to him. 

J Sold. Awake, sir, awake ; speak to us. 

2 Sold. Hear you, sir? 
I Sold. The hand of death hath raught him. \_Drums. 

afar off.'] Hark ! the drums 
Demurely ^ wake the sleepers. Let us bear him 
To th' court-of-guard ; he is of note : our hour 
Is fully out. 

J Sold. Come on, then ; he may recover yet. 

\_Exeunt with the body. 

Probably most of us can interpret the figure from our own remembered 
feelings by moonlight. So in one of Wordsworth's Sonnets : 

With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the sky, 

How silently, and with how wan a face. 

3 The morning drum-beat in camp is apt to awaken a peculiar feeling 
which is very well expressed by demurely. 



156 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT IV. 

Scene X. — Ground between the two Camps, 
Enter Antony and Scarus, with Forces, marching. 

Ant. Their preparation is to-day by sea ; 
We please them not by land. 

Scar. For both, my lord. 

Ant. I would they'd fight i' the fire or in the air ; 
We'd fight there too. But this it is : Our foot 
Upon the hills adjoining to the city 
Shall stay with us : order for sea is given ; 
They have put forth the haven : mount we, then, 
Where their appointment we may best discover, 
And look on their endeavour. \_Exeunt. 

Scene XL — Another Part of the Same. 

Enter Caesar, with his Forces, marching. 

Cces. But being charged, 1 we will be still by land, 
Which,^ as I take't, we shall ; for his best force 
Is forth to man his galleys. To the vales. 
And hold our best advantage. [^Exeunt. 

Scene XII. — Another Part of the Same. 

Enter Antony and Scarus. 

Ant. Yet they are not join'd : where yond pine does 
stand, 



1 *^But being charged " is unless we be charged. See page 126, note 6. 

2 Which refers to the preceding clause, " we will be still by land." 



SCENE XII. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 15/ 

I shall discover all : I'll bring thee word 

Straight, how 'tis like to go. [^jExtf. 

Scar. Swallows have built 

In Cleopatra's sails their nests : ^ the augurers 
Say they know not, — they cannot tell; — look grimly, 
And dare not speak their knowledge. Antony 
Is valiant, and dejected ; and, by starts, 
His fretted fortunes give him hope, and fear. 
Of what he has, and has not. 

\_Alarums afar off, as at a sea-fight. 

Re-enter Antony. 

Ant. All's lost ; this foul Egyptian hath betrayed me : 
My fleet hath yielded to the foe ; and yonder 
They cast their caps up, and carouse together 
Like friends long lost. — Triple-turn'd filth ! 'tis thou 
Hast sold me to this novice ; and my heart 
Makes only wars on thee. — Bid them all fly ; 
For, when I am revenged upon my charm, 
I have done all : bid them all fly ; be gone. — \_Exit Scarus. 
O Sun, thy uprise shall I see no more : 
Fortune and Antony part here ; even here 
Do we shake hands. All come to this ? The hearts 
That spaniel'd me at heels, to whom I gave 
Their wishes, do discandy, melt their sweets 
On blossoming Caesar ; and this pine is bark'd. 
That overtopp'd them all. Betray'd I am : 

3 Plutarch mentions divers ominous events as occurring just before the 
earlier battle of Actium ; among others, this : " The admiral galley of Cleo- 
patra vi^as called Antoniad, in the which there chanced a marvellous ill 
sign : swallows had bred under the poop of her ship, and there came 
others after them, and drave the first away, and plucked down their nests." 



158 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT IV. 

O this false soul of Egypt ! this grave charm/ — 
Whose eye beck'd forth my wars, and call'd them home ; 
Whose bosom was my crownet,^ my chief end, — 
Like a right gipsy, hath, at fast and loose^^ 
Beguiled me to the very heart of loss. — 
What, Eros, Eros ! — 

Enter Cleopatra. 

Ah, thou spell ! Avaunt ! 

Cleo. Why is my lord enraged against his love ? 

Aitt. Vanish, or I shall give thee thy deserving, 
And blemish Cesar's triumph. Let him take thee. 
And hoist thee up to th' shouting plebeians : 
Follow his chariot, like the greatest spot 
Of all thy sex ; most monster-like, be shown 
For poor'st diminutives, for doits ; '^ and let 
Patient Octavia plough thy visage up 

With her prepared nails. \^Exit Cleopatra. 

'Tis well thou'rt gone, 

4 " This grave charm " probably means this deadly or destructive piece 
of witchcraft. In this sense the epithet grave is often used by Chapman in 
his translation of Homer. Thus in the nineteenth book : " But not far hence 
the fatal minutes are of thy grave ruin." It seems to be used in the sense 
of the Latin word gravis. 

5 " That which I looked to as the reward or crown of my endeavours." 
The allusion is to finis coronat opus. 

6 The allusion is to the game oifast and loose, ox pricking at the belt or 
girdle, which was practised by the gipsies in Shakespeare's time, as appears 
by an Epigram of Thomas Freeman's, in his collection, called Run and a 
Great Cast, 1614 : 

Charles the Egyptian, who by jugling could 
Make_/aj/ or loose, or whatsoere he would. 

■7 Doits is the same as " poor'st diminutives," and means the smallest 
pieces of money. Shakespeare uses the word repeatedly. 



SCENE XIII. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 1 59 

If it be well to live ; but better 'twere 

Thou fell'st into my fury, for one death 

Might have prevented many. — Eros, ho ! — 

The shirt of Nessus is upon me ! — Teach me, 

Alcides, thou mine ancestor, thy rage : ^ 

Let me lodge Lichas on the horns o' the Moon ; 

And with those hands, that grasp'd the heaviest club, 

Subdue my worthiest self. ^ The witch shall die : 

To th' Roman boy she hath sold me, and I fall 

Under this plot ; she dies for't. — Eros, ho ! \_Exit. 



Scene XIII. — Alexandria. A Room in Cleopatra's Palace. 

Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Iras, and Mardian. 

Cleo. Help me, my women ! O, he is more mad 
Than Telamon i^ for his shield ; the boar of Thessaly 

8 I have already noted that Antony derived the lineage of the Antonian 
gens from Hercules, who is here designated by his patronymic Alcides. 
The allusion is to the circumstances of Hercules' death. Lichas was the 
servant of Hercules who brought to him the poisoned garment from his wife 
Dejanira ; and when Hercules was in the extreme of agony from the effects 
of the poison, and quite beside himself with rage, he seized Lichas, and 
hurled him an enormous distance into the sea. 

9 Though Antony here uses the word self, his thoughts are really upon 
Hercules, with whom for the moment he identifies himself. So that Heath's 
explanation is doubtless right : " The most exceptionable expression perhaps 
is the bestowing the epithet worthiest on himself; but even this exaggeration 
will appear excusable at least, if not justifiable, when it is considered that it 
is not seriously intended as a vainglorious vaunt, but proceeds wholly from 
a transport of the fancy, which represents him to himself for that moment 
as the very Hercules in person. 

10 Than Ajax Telamon for the armour of Achilles, the most valuable part 
of which was the shield. The boar of Thessaly was the boar killed by 
Meleager. 



l6o ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT IV. 

Was never so emboss'd.i^ 

Char. To th' monument ! 

There lock yourself, and send him word you're dead. 
The soul and body rive not more in parting: 
Than greatness going off. 

Cleo. To th' monument ! i^ — 

Mardian, go tell him I have slain myself; 
Say, that the last I spoke was Antony, 
And word it, pr'ythee, piteously : hence, Mardian, 
And bring me how he takes my death. — To th' monument ! 

\Exeunt. 

Scene XIV. — The Same. Another Room in the Palace, 
Enter Antony atid Eros. 

Ant. Eros, thou yet behold'st me ? 

Eros. Ay, noble lord. 

Ant. Sometime we see a cloud that's dragonish ; 
A vapour sometime like a bear or Hon, 
A tower'd citadel, a pendent rock, 

11 When a hunted animal was so hard run as to foam at the mouth, it 
was said to be emboss' d. 

12 Cleopatra had long before made many sumptuous tombs and monu- 
ments, as well for excellency of workmanship as for height and greatness of 
building, joining hard to the temple of Isis. Thither she caused to be 
brought all the treasure and precious things she had of the ancient kings 
her predecessors ; as gold, silver, emeralds, pearls, ebony, ivory, and cinna- 
mon, and besides all that, a marvellous number of torches, faggots, and fiax. 
So Octavius Caesar, being afraid to lose such a treasure and mass of riches, 
and that this woman for spite would set it on fire and burn it every whit, 
always sent some one or other unto her from him, to put her in good 
comfort, whilst he in the meantime drew near the city with his army. — 
Plutarch. 



SCENE XIV. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. l6l 

A forked mountain, or blue promontory 

With trees upon't, that nod unto the world, 

And mock our eyes with air : thou hast seen these signs ; 

They are black vesper's pageants, i 

Eros. Ay, my lord. 

Ant. That which is now a horse, even with a thought 
The rack dislimns,^ and makes it indistinct 
As water is in water. 

Eros. It does, my lord. 

Ant. My good knave ^ Eros, now thy captain is 
Even such a body : here I am Antony ; 
Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave. 
I made these wars for Egypt ; and the Queen, — 
Whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine ; 
Which, whilst it was mine, had annex'd unto't 
A milhon more, now lost, — she, Eros, has 
Pack'd cards ^ with Csesar, and false-play 'd my glory 
Unto an enemy's triumph. 
Nay, weep not, gentle Eros ; there is left us 
Ourselves to end ourselves. — 

1 The beauty both of the expression and the allusion is lost, unless we 
recollect the frequency and the nature of these shows in Shakespeare's age. 
The following apposite passage from a sermon, by Bishop Hall, is cited by 
Boswell : " I feare some of you are like the pageants of your great solemni- 
ties, wherein there is a show of a solid body, whether of a lyon or elephant, 
or unicorne ; but if they be look'd into, there is nothing but cloth, and sticks, 
and ayre." 

2 To dislimn is to unpaint or obliterate what was before painted or limned. 
• — Rack, from reek, vapour, was used of certain clouds. See The Tempest, 
page 125, note 32. 

3 Knave was often used as a playful or familiar term of endearment. 

* To pack the cards was often used metaphorically for contriving together 
to deceive another. The meaning is, that Cleopatra, by collusion, falsely 
played the great game they were engaged in, so as to sacrifice Antony s fame 
to that of his enemy. 



l62 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT IV. 

Enter Mardian. 

O, thy vile lady ! 
She has robb'd me of my sword. 

Mar. No, Antony ; 

My mistress loved thee, and her fortunes mingled 
With thine entirely. 

Ant. Hence, saucy eunuch ; peace ! 

She hath betray'd me, and shall die the death. 

Mar. Death of one person can be paid but once, 
And that she has discharged : what thou wouldst do 
Is done unto thy hand : the last she spake 
Was, Antony / most noble Antony I 
Then in the midst a tearing groan did break 
The name of Antony ; it was divided 
Between her heart and lips : she render'd life, 
Thy name so buried in her. 

Ant. Dead, then? 

Mar, Dead. 

Ant. Unarm me, Eros ; the long day's task is done, 
And we must sleep. — \To Mardian.] That thou depart'st 

hence safe. 
Does pay thy labour richly ; go. — \^Exit Mardian. 

Off, pluck off: 
The seven-fold shield of Ajax cannot keep 
The battery from my heart.^ O, cleave, my sides ! 
Heart, once be stronger than thy continent. 
Crack thy frail case ! — Apace, Eros, apace. — 
No more a soldier : bruised pieces, go ; 



5 The haXXery proceediftg from my heart, which is strong enough to break 
through the sevenfold shield of Ajax; keep\ia.vmg the sense of retain or 
hold in. 



SCENE XIV. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 163 

You have been nobly borne. — From me awhile. — \_Exit Eros, 

I will o'ertake thee, Cleopatra, and 

Weep for my pardon. So it must be, for now 

All length is torture : ^ since the torch is out. 

Lie down, and stray no further : now all labour 

Mars what it does ; yea, very force entangles 

Itself with strength : seal, then,^ and all is done. — 

Eros ! — I come, my Queen. — Eros ! — Stay for me : 

Where souls do couch on flowers, we'll hand in hand. 

And with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze : 

Dido and her ^neas shall want troops, 

And all the haunt be ours. — Come, Eros, Eros ! 

Re-enter Eros. 

Eros. What would my lord ? 

Ant. Since Cleopatra died, 

I've lived in such dishonour, that the gods 
Detest my baseness. I, that with my sword 
Quarter'd the world, and o'er green Neptune's back 
With ships made cities, condemn myself to lack 
The courage of a woman ; less noble-minded 
Than she which by her death our Caesar tells 
Pm conqueror of myself. Thou art sworn, Eros, 
That, when the exigent should come, — which now 
Is come indeed, — when I should see behind me 
Th' inevitable prosecution of 
Disgrace and horror, that, on my command, 

6 That is, all length oi journey or travel; as is shown by the following 
part of the sentence. Steevens thought the Poet must have written life in- 
stead of length. 

■^ The allusion is to the execution of a deed or indenture, where the fixing 
of the seal finishes the business. 



164 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT IV. 

Thou then wouldst kill me : do't ; the time is come : 
Thou strikest not me, 'tis Caesar thou defeat'st. 
Put colour in thy cheek. 

Eros. The gods withhold me ! 

Shall I do that which all the Parthian darts, 
Though enemy, lost aim, and could not ? 

Ant Eros, 

Wouldst thou be window'd in great Rome, and see 
Thy master thus with pleach'd arms,^ bending down 
His corrigible ^ neck, his face subdued 
To penetrative shame, whilst the wheel'd seat 
Of fortunate Caesar, drawn before him, branded 
His baseness that ensued P^^ 

Eros. I would not see't. 

Ant. Come, then ; for with a wound I must be cured. 
Draw that thy honest sword, which thou hast worn 
Most useful for thy country. 

Eros. O, sir, pardon me ! 

Ant. When I did make thee free, sworest thou not 
then 
To do this when I bade thee ? Do it at once ; 
Or thy precedent services are all 
But accidents unpurposed. Draw, and come. 

Eros. Turn from me, then, that noble countenance 
Wherein the worship of the whole world lies. 

Ant. Lo thee ! \_Turning from him. 

Eros. My sword is drawn. 

Ant. Then let it do at once 

The thing why thou hast drawn it. 

8 " Pleach'd arms " is arms interwoven, ox folded together. 

9 Corrigible for corrected, oxi^ penetrative iox penetrating. 
I'* Branded with baseness him tha.t followed. 



SCENE XIV. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 165 

Eros, My dear master, 

My captain, and my Emperor, let me say, 
Before I strike this bloody stroke, farewell. 

Ant. 'Tis said, man ; and farewell. 

Eros. Farewell, great chief. Shall I strike now? 

Ant. Now, Eros. 

Eros. Why, there then : \_Falls on his sword ^ thus I do 
escape the sorrow 
Of Antony's death. \_Dies. 

Ant. Thrice-nobler than myself ! 

Thou teachest me, O valiant Eros, what 
I should, and thou couldst not. — My Queen and Eros 
Have by their brave instruction got upon me 
A nobleness in rec6rd : but I will be 
A bridegroom in my death, and run into't 
As to a lover's bed. Come, then ; and, Eros, 
Thy master dies thy scholar : to do thus 
I learn'd of thee. \_Falling on his sword. 

How ! not yet dead ? not dead ? — 
The guard, ho ! — O, dispatch me ! 

Enter Dercetas and Guard. 

1 Guard. What's the noise ? 
Ant. I've done my work ill, friends : O, make an end 

Of what I have begun. 

2 Guard. The star is fall'n. 
I Guard. And time is at his period. 

All. Alas, and woe ! 

Ant. Let him that loves me strike me dead. 

1 Guard. Not I. 

2 Guard. Nor I. 

3 Guard. Nor any one. \_Exeunt Guard. 



1 66 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT IV. 

Der. Thy death and fortunes bid thy followers fly. 
This sword but shown to Caesar, with this tidings. 
Shall enter me with him.ii 

Enter Diomedes. 

Dio. Where's Antony? 

Der. There, Diomed, there. 

Dio. Lives he? 

Wilt thou not answer, man ? \_Exit Dercetas. 

Ant. Art thou there, Diomed? Draw thy sword, and 
give me 
Sufficing strokes for death. 

Dio. Most absolute lord. 

My mistress Cleopatra sent me to thee. 

Ant. When did she send thee ? 

Dio. Now, my lord. 

Ant. Where is she? 

Dio. Lock'd in her monument. She had a prophesying 
fear 
Of what hath come to pass : for when she saw — 
Which never shall be found — you did suspect 
She had disposed ^^ with Caesar, and that your rage 
Would not be purged, she sent you word she was dead ; 
But, fearing since how it might work, hath sent 
Me to proclaim the truth ; and I am come, 
I dread, too late. 

Ant. Too late, good Diomed : call my guard, I pr'ythee. 

11 Shall gain me admission into his service and confidence. Shall, again, 
for will. See page 6i, note i. 

12 Dispose was sometimes used for arrange or compose. So in The Faerie 
Queene, ii. 8 : " Words well dispost have secret powre t' appease inflamed 
rage." 



SCENE XV. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 167 

Dio. What, ho, the Emperor's guard ! The guard, what, ho ! 
Come, your lord calls ! 

Enter some of the Guard. 

Ant. Bear me, good friends, where Cleopatra bides ; 
'Tis the last service that I shall command you. 

I Guard. Woe, woe are we,i^ sir, you may not live to 
wear 
All your true followers out. 

All. Most heavy day ! 

Ant. Nay, good my fellows, do not please sharp fate 
To grace it with your sorrows : bid that welcome 
Which comes to punish us, and we punish it. 
Seeming to bear it lightly. Take me up : 
I've led you oft : carry me now, good friends. 
And have my thanks for all. \_Exeunt bearing Antony. 

Scene XV. — The Same. A Monument. 
Enter, above, Cleopatra, Charmian, and Iras. 

Cleo. O Charmian, I will never go from hence. 

Char. Be comforted, dear madam. 

Cleo. No, I will not : 

All strange and terrible events are welcome. 
But comforts we despise ; our size of sorrow, 
Proportion'd to our cause, must be as great 
As that which makes it. — 

Enter, below, Diomedes. 

How now ! is he dead ? 

13 " Woe is me," or " I am woe " is an old idiomatic phrase equivalent to 
" I am sorry." 



1 68 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT IV. 

Dio. His death's upon him, but not dead. 
Look out o' the other side your monument ; 
His guard have brought him thither. 

Enter, below, Antony, borne by the Guard. 

Cleo. O Sun, 

Bum the great sphere thou movest in ! i darkling stand 
The varying star o' the world.^ — O Antony, 
Antony, Antony ! — Help, Charmian ; help, Iras, help ; — 
Help, friends below ! — let's draw him hither. 

Ant. Peace ! 

Not Caesar's valour hath o'erthrown Antony, 
But Antony's hath triumph'd on itself. 

Cleo. So it should be, that none but Antony 
Should conquer Antony ; but woe 'tis so ! 

Ant. I'm dying, Egypt, dying ; only yet 
I here imp6rtune death awhile, until 
Of many thousand kisses the poor last 
I lay upon thy lips. 

Cleo. I dare not, dear, — 

Dear my lord, pardon, pardon me — I dare not, 
Lest I be taken.^ Not th' imperious show 
Of the full-fortuned Caesar ever shall 

1 According to the philosophy which prevailed from the age of Aristotle 
to that of Shakespeare, and long since, the Sun was a planet, and was 
whirled round the Earth by the motion of a solid sphere, in which it was 
fixed. If the Sun, therefore, was to set fire to this sphere, so as to consume 
it, the consequence would be, that itself, for want of support, must drop 
through, and wander in endless space. — Heath. 

2 " The varying star o' the world " is the changing Moon ; which would 
stand darkling, that is, in the dark, sure enough, if the Sun should break 
loose and run away. 

3 Cleopatra means that she dare not come down out of the monument 
to Antony. 



SCENE XV. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 1 69 

Be brooch'd ^ with me ; if knife, drugs, serpents, have 
Edge, sting, or operation, I am safe : 
Your wife Octavia, with her modest eyes 
And still conclusion, shall acquire no honour 
Demuring upon me. But come, come, Antony, — 
Help me, my women, — we must draw thee up ; — 
Assist, good friends. 

Ant O, quick, or I am gone. 

Cleo. Here's sport indeed ! ^ How heavy weighs my lord ! 
Our strength is all gone into heaviness. 
That makes the weight : had I great Juno's power. 
The strong- wing' d Mercury should fetch thee up, 
And set thee by Jove's side. Yet come a little. — 
Wishers were ever fools, — O, come, come, come ; 

\^They draw Antony up. 
And welcome, welcome ! die where thou hast lived : 
Quicken with kissing : had my lips that power. 
Thus would I wear them out.^ 

4 Brooch was used for an ornament of any kind. So in Jonson's Poet- 
aster : " Honour's a good brooch to wear in a man's hat at all times." And 
in Hamlet, iv. 4 : "He is the brooch, indeed, and gem of all the nation." — 
Imperious and imperial were equivalent words in Shakespeare's time. 

5 Some editors have stumbled rather strangely at this use of sport ; just 
as if it were not a common and a natural thing for people to express the 
intensest feeling by words of a contrary meaning. 

6 Cleopatra would not open the gates, but came to the high windows, and 
cast out certain chains and ropes, in which Antonius was trussed ; and Cleo- 
patra her own self, with two women only, which she had suffered to come 
with her into these monuments, drew Antonius up. They that were present 
to behold it said they never saw so pitiful a sight. For they plucked up 
poor Antonius, all bloody as he was, and drawing on with pangs of death ; 
who, holding up his hands to Cleopatra, raised up himself as well as he 
could. It was a hard thing for these women to do; but Cleopatra, put- 
ting-to all her strength, did lift him up with much ado, and never let go her 
hold, with the help of the women beneath, that bade her be of good courage. 



170 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT IV 

All. A heavy sight ! 

Ant I am dying, Egypt, dying : 
Give me some wine, and let me speak a little. 

Cleo. No, let me speak ; and let me rail so high, 
That the false housewife Fortune break her wheel, 
Provoked by my offence. 

Ant. One word, sweet Queen : 

Of Caesar seek your honour, with your safety. — O ! 

Cleo. They do not go together. 

Ant. Gentle, hear me ; 

None about Caesar trust but Proculeius. 

Cleo. My resolution and my hands I'll trust ; 
None about Caesar. 
( Ant. The miserable change now at my end 
Lament nor sorrow at ; but please your thoughts 
In feeding them with those my former fortunes. 
Wherein I lived the greatest prince o' the world, 
The noblest ; and do now not basely die, 
Nor cowardly put off my helmet to 
My countryman, — A Roman by a Roman 
Valiantly vanquish'd."^ Now my spirit is going ; 

and were as sorry to see her labour so as she herself. So, when she had 
gotten him in after that sort, and laid him on a bed, she rent her garments 
upon him, clapping her breast, and scratching her face and stomach. Then 
she dried up his blood that had berayed his face, and called him her lord, 
her husband, and emperor, forgetting her own misery and calamity for the 
pity and compassion she took of him. Antonius made her cease her lament- 
ing, and called for wine, either because he was athirst, or else for that he 
thought thereby to hasten his own death. — PLUTARCH, 

7 When he had drunk, he earnestly prayed her, that she would seek to 
save her life, if she could possible, without reproach and dishonour ; and 
chiefly that she should trust Proculeius above any man else about Caesar. 
And as for himself, that she should not lament nor sorrow for the miserable 
change of his fortune ; but rather that she should think him the more fortu* 



SCENE XV. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. I /I 

I can no more. ) 

Cleo, Noblest of men, woo't ^ die ? 

Hast thou no care of me ? shall I abide 
In this dull world, which in thy absence is 
No better than a sty ? — O, see, my women, [Antony dies. 
The crown o' the Earth doth melt. — My lord ! my 

lord ! — 
O, wither' d is the garland of the war, 
The soldier's pole ^ is fall'n ; young boys and girls 
Are level now with men ; the odds is gone. 
And there is nothing left remarkable i^ 
Beneath the visiting Moon. \_Faints. 

Char. O, quietness, lady ! 

Iras. She is dead too, our sovereign. 

Char. Lady, — 

Iras. Madam, — 

Char. O madam, madam, madam, — 

Iras. Royal Egypt, Empress, — 

Char. Peace, peace, Iras ! 

Cko. No more but e'en a woman,^i and commanded 
By such poor passion as the maid that milks 
And does the meanest chares. ^^ It were for me 

nate for the former triumphs and honours he had received; considering 
that, while he lived, he was the noblest and greatest prince of the world ; 
and that now he was overcome, not cowardly, but valiantly, a Roman by 
another Roman. — Plutarch. 

8 Woo't was a colloquial variation of wotddst thou or wilt thou. 

9 "The soldier's /c/^ " is the standard or banner ; that which the soldiers 
follow and rally to. 

10 Remarkable carried a much stronger sense in the Poet's time than it 
does now ; such as extraordinary, glorious, wonderful. 

11 Here, as often, but is equivalent simply to than. 

12 Chares is an old word for various odds and ends of work, such as com- 
monly fall to boys and servant girls. Now spelt and pronounced chores. 



1/2 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT IV. 

To throw my sceptre at th' injurious gods ;^^ 

To tell them that this world did equal theirs 

Till they had stol'n our jewel. All's but nought ; 

Patience is sottish, and impatience does 

Become a dog that's mad : then is it sin 

To rush into the secret house of death, 

Ere death dare come to us? How do you, women? 

What, what ! good cheer ! Why, how now, Charmian ! 

My noble girls ! Ah, women, women, look. 

Our lamp is spent, it's out ! Good sirs,i^ take heart : 

We'll bury him ; and then, what's brave, what's noble, 

Let's do it after the high Roman fashion. 

And make death proud to take us. Come, away ! 

This case of that huge spirit now is cold : 

Ah, women,' women ! come ; we have no friend 

But resolution, and the briefest end.^^ 

\_Exeunf; those above bearing off Antony's body. 

13 " It were right for me to throw," or " I might justly throw, my sceptre 
at the unjust gods." Cleopatra has been used to think herself and Antony 
so nearly equal with the gods, that the latter have no right to shut down so 
sternly upon them. 

14 This is evidently addressed to the women ; and Dyce has shown, 
beyond question, that such modes of address were not uncommon. So, in 
a later scene, we have " Sirrah, Iras, go." 

15 Briefest for quickest or speediest. See page 112, note 3. 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 1/3 



ACT V. 

Scene I. — Caesar's Camp before Alexandria. 

Enter C^sar, Agrippa, Dolabella, Mec^nas, Gallus, Pro- 
culeius, and others. 

CcBs. Go to him, Dolabella, bid him yield ; 
Being so frustrate, tell him he mocks us by 
The pauses that he makes. 

Dot. Caesar, I shall. \_Extt. 

Enter Dercetas, with the Sword of Antony. 

Cces. Wherefore is that? and what art thou that darest 
Appear thus to us ? i 

Der. I am call'd Dercetas ; 

Mark Antony I served, who best was worthy 
Best to be served : whilst he stood up and spoke, 
He was my master ; and I wore my hfe 
To spend upon his haters. If thou please 
To take me to thee, as I was to him 
I'll be to Caesar ; if thou pleasest not, 
I yield thee up my Hfe. 

Cces. What is't thou say'st? 

Der. I say, O Caesar, Antony is dead. 

Cces. The breaking of so great a thing should make 
A greater crack : the round-uproared world ^ 

1 That is, with a drawn and bloody sword in thy hand. 

2 The Poet elsewhere uses to uproar as a transitive verb, and with a sense 
much stronger than it now bears. So in Macbeth, iv. 3 : " Had I power, I 
should pour the sweet milk of concord into Hell, uproar the universal 
peace." &c. 



u 



174 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. A( 

Should have shook lions into civil streets, 

And citizens to their dens. The death of Antony 

Is not a single doom ; in the name lay 

A moiety of the world. 

Der. He is dead, Csesar ; 

Not by a public minister of justice, 
Nor by a hired knife ; but that self ^ hand, 
Which writ his honour in the acts it did. 
Hath, with the courage which the heart did lend it, 
Splitted the heart. This is his sword ; 
I robb'd his wound of it ; behold it stain'd 
With his most noble blood. 

CcBs. Look you sad, friends ? 

The gods rebuke me, but it is a tidings ^ 
To wash the eyes of kings : and strange it is 
That nature must compel us to lament 
Our most persisted deeds. 

Mec. His taints and honours 

Waged ^ equal with him. 

Agr. A rarer spirit never 

Did steer humanity. — But you, gods, will give us 
Some faults to make us men. — Csesar is touch'd. 

Mec. When such a spacious mirror's set before him. 
He needs must see himself. 

CcBs. O Antony ! 

I've foUow'd thee to this. But we do lance 



3 Shakespeare often uses selfo-S equivalent to self-same. 

4 " May the gods rebuke me if it be not tidings to make kings weep." 
But again in its exceptive sense. We have tidings used as a noun singular 
in the preceding Act, scene 14 : " This tidings." 

5 Waged here must mean to be opposed as equal stakes in a wager ; unless 
we suppose that weighed is meant. 



SCEN« I. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 1^5 

Diseases in our bodies : I must perforce 

Have shown to thee such a declining day, 

Or look'd on thine ; we could not stall together 

In the whole world : but yet let me lament, 

With tears as sovereign as the blood of hearts, 

That thou, my brother, my competitor 

In top of all design,^ my mate in empire. 

Friend and companion in the front of war, 

The arm of mine own body, and the heart 

Where mine his ^ thoughts did kindle, — that our starSj 

Unreconciliable, should divide 

Our equalness to this.^ — Hear me, good friends, — 

But I will tell you at some meeter season : 

Enter a Messenger. 

The business of this man looks out of him ; 

We'll hear him what he says. — Whence are you, sir? 

Mess. A poor Egyptian yet.^ The Queen my mistress, 
Confined in all she has, her monument. 
Of thy intents desires instruction, 
That she preparedly may frame herself 
To th' way she's forced to. 

Cces. Bid her have good heart : 

She soon shall know of us, by some of ours, 

6 " In top of all design " means in the highest of all designs. The substan- 
tive top is not often used thus ; but Shakespeare repeatedly has the verb to 
top for to surpass. See Ha7nlet, page ii6, note 74. — Competitor, as before, 
iov partner or confederate. 

'^ His for its, referring to heart. 

s Should have made us, in our equality of fortune, disagree to such a pitch 
as this, that one of us must die. 

9 Yet an Egyptian, or subject to the Queen of Egypt, though soon to be- 
come a subject of Rome. 



1/6 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT V. 

How honourable and how kindly we 
Determine for her ; for Caesar cannot live 
To be ungentle. 

Mess. So the gods preserve thee ! \_Exit 

CcEs. Come hither, Proculeius. Go, and say 
We purpose her no shame : give her what comforts 
The quality of her passion shall require. 
Lest, in her greatness, by some mortal stroke 
She do defeat us ; for her life in Rome 
Would be eternal in our triumph : go, 
And with your speediest bring us what she says, 
And how you find of her.^^ 

Fro. Caesar, I shall. \_Exit. 

Cces. Gallus, go you along. \_Exif Gal.] Where's Dola- 
bella. 
To second Proculeius? 

Agr. Mec. 6^r. Dolabella ! 

Cces. Let him alone, for I remember now 
How he's employ'd : he shall in time be ready. 
Go with me to my tent ; where you shall see 
How hardly I was drawn into this war ; 
How calm and gentle I proceeded still 
In all my writings : go with me, and see 
What I can show in this.^^ \_Exeit-nt. 

10 He sent Proculeius, and commanded him to do what he could possible 
to get Cleopatra alive, fearing lest, otherwise, all the treasure would be lost ; 
and, furthermore, he thought that, if he could take Cleopatra, and bring her 
alive to Rome, she would marvellously beautify and set out his triumph. 
But Cleopatra would never put herself into Proculeius' hands, although 
they spake together. — PLUTARCH. 

11 After Antonius had thrust his sword in himself, as they carried him into 
the tombs and monuments of Cleopatra, one of his guard called Dercetasus 
took his sword with which he had stricken himself, and hid it; then he 



SCENE II. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 1/7 

Scene II. — Alexandria. A Room in the Monument. 

Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, and Iras. 

Cleo. My desolation does begin to make 
A better life. 'Tis paltry to be Caesar ; 
Not being Fortune, he's but Fortune's knave,i 
A minister of her will : and it is great 
To do that thing that ends all other deeds ; 
Which shackels accidents, and bolts up change ; 
Which sleeps, and never palates more the dung, 
The beggar's nurse and Caesar's.^ 

Enter, to the gates of the monument, Proculeius, Gallus, 
and Soldiers. 

Pro. Caesar sends greeting to the Queen of Egypt ; 

secretly stole away, and brought Octavius Caesar the first news of his death, 
and showed him his sword that was bloodied. Caesar, hearing this news, 
straight withdrew himself into a secret place of his tent, and there burst out 
with tears, lamenting his hard and miserable fortune, that had been his 
friend and brother-in law, his equal in the empire, and companion with him 
in sundry great battles and exploits. Then he called for all his friends, and 
showed them the letters Antonius had written to him, and his answers also 
sent him again, during their quarrel and strife ; and how fiercely and proudly 
the other answered him, to all just and reasonable matters he wrote unto 
him. — Plutarch. 

1 Knave in its old proper sense oi servant or slave. Often so. 

2 There is some obscurity here, arising from the circumstance that, as 
Johnson observes, "the act of suicide, and the state which is the effect of 
Suicide, are confounded." The meaning seems to be about this : Voluntary 
death is an act that bars off all further change ; and it puts us in a state 
where we no longer need the gross earthly sustenance in the use of which 
Cassar and the beggar are on a level. Nurse appears to be used here for 
nourishment. Cleopatra is speaking contemptuously of this life, as if any 
thing that depends upon such coarse vulgar feeding were not worth keep- 
ing. So in the first scene of this play : " Our dungy earth alike feeds man as 
beast." 



1/8 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT ^ 

And bids thee study on what fair demands 
Thou mean'st to have him grant thee. 

Cleo. What's thy name ? 

Pro. My name is Proculeius. 

Cleo. Antony 

Did tell me of you, bade me trust you ; but 
I do not greatly care to be deceived,^ 
That have no use for trusting. If your master 
Would have a queen his beggar, you must tell him 
That majesty, to keep decorum, must 
No less beg than a kingdom : if he please 
To give me conquer'd Egypt for my son. 
He gives me so much of mine own, as "* I 
Will kneel to him with thanks. 

Pro. Be of good cheer ; 

You're fall'n into a princely hand, fear nothing : 
Make your full reference freely to my lord. 
Who is so full of grace, that it flows over 
On all that need. Let me report to him 
Your sweet dependency ; and you shall find 
A conqueror that will pray in aid for kindness,^ 



3 Cleopatra is exceedingly shrewd and artful in this : To throw Procu- 
leius off his guard, she gives him to understand that she is pretty much in- 
different whether he be true or not. That is just the thing to make Caesar 
feel sure of having her at his command, and so he will be less secret as to 
his purpose, or what he means to do with her ; which is what she most of 
all desires to learn. 

4 As and that, both conjunction and pronoun, were used interchangeably 
in the Poet's time. Bacon's Essays have many instances of the same usage. 
Here we should use that instead of as. 

^ The meaning is, when you sue to him for mercy, as to a superior, he will 
sue for your kindness as an ally, and as having an interest in common with 
him. Praying in aid is an old law term to signify the act of petitioning in 



SCENE II. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 1/9 

Where he for grace is kneel'd to. 

Cleo. Pray you, tell him 

I am his fortune's vassal, and I send him 
The greatness he has got.^ I hourly learn 
A doctrine of obedience ; and would gladly 
Look him i' the face. 

. Pro. This I'll report, dear lady. 

Have comfort, for I know your pHght is pitied 
Of him that caused it. 

Gal. You see how easily she may be surprised. 

\Here Proculeius and two of the Guard ascend 
the monument by a ladder placed against a 
window, and, having descended, come behind 
Cleopatra. Some of the Guard unbar and 
open the gates. 
\To Procul. and the Guard.] Guard her till Caesar come. 

\_Exit. 
Iras. Royal Queen ! 

Char. O Cleopatra ! thou art taken. Queen ! 
Cleo. Quick, quick, good hands ! \_Drawing a dagger. 
Pro. Hold, worthy lady, hold ! 

\_Seizes and disarms her. 
Do not yourself such wrong, who are in. this 
Relieved, but not betray'd. 

Cleo. What, of death too, 

That rids our dogs of languish ? 

Pro. Cleopatra, 

Do not abuse my master's bounty by 

a court of justice for the calling in of help from another that has an interest 
in the cause on trial. 

6 " In yielding to him I only give him that honour which he himself has 
achieved." 



l80 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT V. 

Th' undoing of yourself : let the world see 
His nobleness well acted, which your death 
Will never let come forth."^ 

Cleo. Where art thou, death? 

Come hither, come ! come, come, and take a queen 
Worth many babes and beggars ! 

Pro. O, temperance, lady ! 

Cleo. Sir, I will eat no meat, I'll not drink, sir ; 
If idle talk will once be necessary,^ 

7 Proculeius came to the gates that were thick and strong, and surely 
barred ; but yet there were some crannies through the which her voice 
might be heard : and so they without understood, that Cleopatra demanded 
the kingdom of Egypt for her sons ; and that Proculeius answered her, that 
she should be of good cheer, and not be afraid to refer all unto Cassar. 
After he had viewed the place very well, he came and reported her answer 
unto Caesar; who immediately sent Gallus to speak once again with her, 
and bade him purposely hold her in talk, whilst Proculeius did set up a 
ladder against that high window by the which Antonius was trised (drawn) 
up, and came down into the monument with two of his men, hard by the 
gate where Cleopatra stood to hear what Gallus said unto her. One of her 
women, which was shut up in her monuments with her, saw Proculeius by 
chance as he came down, and shrieked out, " O poor Cleopatra, thou art 
taken ! " Then, when she saw Proculeius behind her as she came from the 
gate, she thought to have stabbed herself with a short dagger she wore of 
purpose by her side. But Proculeius came suddenly upon her, and, taking 
her by both the hands, said unto her, " Cleopatra, first thou shalt do thyself 
great wrong, and secondly unto Cassar, to deprive him of the opportunity 
openly to show his bounty and mercy, and to give his enemies cause to 
accuse the most courteous and noble prince that ever was, and to appeach 
him, as though he were a cruel and merciless man, that were not to be 
trusted." So, even as he spake the word, he took the dagger from her, and 
shook her clothes for fear of any poison hidden about her. — PLUTARCH. 

8 The meaning of this has been a good deal questioned, and some have 
thought the text corrupt. I understand Cleopatra to mean, simply, " If, for 
the nonce, it be worth the while, or if it be needful to waste time in vain 
words " ; implying, withal, that her purpose is action, not speech. Here, as 
often in conversation, will, I take it, has no reference to the future. Mr. C. 
J. Monro, however, has given Dr. Ingleby the following snug paraphrase of 



SCENE II. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. l8l 

I'll not sleep neither : this mortal house I'll ruin, 
Do Caesar what he can. Know, sir, that I 
Will not wait pinion'd at your master's Court ; 
Nor once be chastised with the sober eye 
Of dull Octavia. Shall they hoist me up, 
And show me to the shouting varletry 
Of censuring Rome ? Rather a ditch in Egypt 
Be gentle grave unto me ! rather on Nilus' mud 
Lay me stark naked, and let water-flies 
Blow me into abhorring ! rather make 
My country's high pyramides my gibbet, 
And hang me up in chains ! 

I'ro. You do extend 

These thoughts of horror further than you shall 
Find cause in Caesar. 

£n^er Dolabella. 

Do/. Proculeius, 

What thou hast done thy master Caesar knows, 
And he hath sent for thee : as for the Queen, 
I'll take her to my guard. 

Pro. So, Dolabella, 

It shall content me best : be gentle to her. — 
\^To Cleg.] To Caesar I will speak what you shall please. 
If you'll employ me to him. 

C/eo. Say, I would die.^ 

\_Exeunt Proculeius and Soldiers. 

the text : " If this gift of the gab which Plutarch will say (for I live before his 
time) was my particular charm, consents for once to make its ' idle talk ' 
humbly useful, it shall be employed in keeping me awake." 

9 Now was she altogether overcome with sorrow and passion of mind; 
for she had knocked her breast so pitifully, that she had martyred it, and 
in divers places had raised ulcers and inflammations, so that she fell into 



1 82 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT V 

Dol. Most noble Empress, you have heard of me ? 

Cleo. I cannot tell. 

Dol. Assuredly you know me. 

Cleo. No matter, sir, what I have heard or known. 
You laugh when boys or women tell their dreams : 
Is't not your trick ? 

Dol. I understand not, madam. 

Cleo. I dream'd there was an Emperor Antony. 
O, such another sleep, that I might see 
But such another man ! — 

Dol. If it might please ye, — 

Cleo. — His face was as the heavens ; and therein stuck 
A Sun and Moon, which kept their course, and lighted 
The little 0,10 the Earth : — 

Dol. Most sovereign creature, — 

Cleo. — His legs bestrid the ocean ; his rear'd arm 
Crested the world ; his voice was propertied 
As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends ; 
But, when he meant to quail and shake the orb, 
He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty, 
There was no Winter in't ; an Autumn 'twas 
That grew the more by reaping : his delights 
Were dolphin-like ; they show'd his back above 

a fever withal ; whereof she was very glad, hoping thereby to have a good 
colour to abstain from meat, and that so she might have died easily without 
any trouble. But Caesar mistrusted the matter by many conjectures he had, 
and therefore did put her in fear, and threatened her to put her children to 
a shameful death. With these threats, Cleopatra for fear yielded straight, 
as she would have yielded unto strokes ; and afterwards suffered herself to 
be cured and dieted as they listed. — PLUTARCH. 

10 The Poet uses O for orb or circle. So in A Midsummer, iii. 2: 

Fair Helena; who more engilds the night 
Than all yon fiery O's and eyes of light. 



SCENE II. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 1 83 

The element they lived in : in his livery 

Walk'd crowns and crownets; realms and islands were 

As plates 1^ dropp'd from his pocket. — 

DoL Cleopatra, — 

Cleo. — Think you there was, or might be, such a man 
As this I dream'd of? 

DoL Gentle madam, no. 

Cleo. You lie, up to the hearing of the gods ! 
But, if there be, or ever were, one such, 
It's past the size of dreaming : Nature wants stuff 
To vie strange forms with fancy ; yet, t' imagine 
An Antony, were Nature's piece 'gainst fancy. 
Condemning shadows quite. i^ 

DoL Hear me, good madam. 

Your loss is, as yourself, great ; and you bear it 
As answering to the weight : would I might never 
O'ertake pursued success, but I do feel, 
"By the rebound of yours, a grief that smites 
My very heart at root. 

Cleo. I thank you, sir. 

Know you what Caesar means to do with me ? 

Dol. I'm loth to tell you what I would you knew. 

Cleo. Nay, pray you, sir, — 

Dol. Though he be honourable, — 

Cleo. He'll lead me, then, in triumph ? 

11 Plates for silver money ; plata being the Spanish word for it. 

12 Shakespeare sometimes uses fancy and imagination as equivalent 
terms, and here he uses both for the dreaming-power. Nature lacks ma- 
terial to keep up with fancy in the creation of strange forms ; yet to fancy 
such an actual being as Antony, a man of Nature's making, were to make 
Nature an overmatch for fancy, dwarfing its shadowy creatures into insig- 
nificance. The passage is exceedingly strong and subtile, and comes appro- 
priately from this matchless roll of unwomanly womanhood. 



184 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, ACT V. 

DoL Madam, he will ; I know't.^^ \_Flourish within. 

Within. Make way there ! — Caesar ! 

Enter C^sar, Gallus, Proculeius, Mecenas, Seleucus, and 
Attendants. 

Cces. Which is the Queen of Egypt ? 

Dot. It is the Emperor, madam. [Cleopatra kneels. 

Cces. Arise, you shall not kneel : 
I pray you, rise ; rise, Egypt. 

Cleo. Sir, the gods 

Will have it thus ; my master and my lord 
I must obey. 

Cces. Take to you no hard thoughts : 

The record of what injuries you did us. 
Though written in our flesh, we shall remember 

13 There was a young gentleman, Cornelius Dolabella, that was one of 
Caesar's very great familiars, and besides did bear no ill-will unto Cleopatra. 
He sent her word secretly, as she had requested him, that Caesar deter- 
mined to take his journey through Syria, and that within three days he 
would send her away before with her children. When this was told Cleo- 
patra, she requested Caesar that it would please him to suffer her to offer the 
last oblations of the dead unto the soul of Antonius. This being granted, 
she was carried to the place where his tomb was ; and there falling down on 
her knees, embracing the tomb with her women, the tears running down her 
cheeks, she began to speak after this sort : " O my dear Lord Antonius, it is 
not long since I buried thee here, being a free woman ; and now I offer 
unto thee the funeral sprinklings and oblations, being a captive and pris- 
oner ; and yet I am forbidden and kept from tearing and murdering this 
captive body of mine with blows, which they carefully guard and keep only 
to triumph of thee : look therefore henceforth for no other honours, offer- 
ings, nor sacrifices from me; for these are the last which Cleopatra can 
give thee, since now they carry her away. If the gods where thou art now 
have any power and authority, since our gods have forsaken us, suffer not 
thy true friend and lover to be carried away alive, that in me they triumph 
of thee ; but receive me with thee, and let me be buried in one self tomb 
with thee." — PLUTARCH. 



SCENE II. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 1 85 

As things but done by chance. 

Cleo. Sole sir o' the world, 

I cannot project ^^ mine own cause so well 
To make it clear ; but do confess I have 
Been laden with like frailties which before 
Have often shamed our sex. 

Cces. Cleopatra, know, 

We will extenuate rather than enforce.i^ 
If you apply yourself to our intents, — 
Which toward you are most gentle, — you shall find 
A benefit in this change ; but, if you seek 
To lay on me a cruelty, by taking 
Antony's course, you shall bereave yourself 
Of my good purposes, and put your children 
To that destruction which I'll guard them from, 
If thereon you rely. I'll take my leave. 

Cleo. And may, through all the world : 'tis yours ; and we, 
Your scutcheons and your signs of conquest, shall 
Hang in what place you please. Here, my good lord ; — 

C(Es. You shall advise me in all for Cleopatra. 

Cleo. — This is the brief of money, plate, and jewels, 
I am possess'd of : 'tis exactly valued ; 
Not petty things admitted. ^^ — Where's Seleucus? 

1* Project here means, apparently, set forth or state; though Malone ex- 
plains it by shape ox form. 

1^ To enforce, as the word is here used, is to urge strongly, io press, or to 
push home. So in Coriolanus, iii. 3 : "In this point charge him home, that 
he affects tyrannical power ; if he evade us there, enforce him with his envy 
to the people." 

16 Shortly after, Caesar came himself in person to see her, and to comfort 
her. Cleopatra, being laid on a little low bed, in poor estate, suddenly rose 
up, naked in her smock, and fell down at his feet marvellously disfigured ; 
both for that she had plucked her hair from her head, as also for that she 
had martyred all her face with her nails ; and, besides, her voice was small 



1 86 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT V, 

SeL Here, madam. 

Cleo. This is my treasurer : let him speak, my lord, 
Upon his peril, that I have reserved 
To myself nothing. — Speak the truth, Seleucus. 

SeL Madam, 
I had rather seal my lips than, to my peril, 
Speak that which is not. 

Cleo. What have I kept back? 

SeL Enough to purchase what you have made known. 

Cces. Nay, blush not, Cleopatra ; I approve 
Your wisdom in the deed. 

Cleo. See, Caesar ! O, behold. 

How pomp is follow'd ! mine will now be yours ; 
And, should we shift estates, yours would be mine. 
Th' ingratitude of this Seleucus does 
Even make me wild. — O slave, of no more trust 
Than love that's hired ! What, go'st thou back? thou shalt 
Go back, I warrant thee ; but I'll catch thine eyes, 
Though they had wings : slave, soulless villain, dog ! 
O rarely base ! 

CcBs. Good Queen, let us entreat you. 

Cleo. O Caesar, what a wounding shame is this, 

and trembling, her eyes sunk into her head with continual blubbering ; and, 
moreover, they might see the most part of her stomach torn in sunder. To 
be short, her body was not much better than her mind ; yet her good grace 
and comeliness, and the force of her beauty, was not altogether defaced. 
But, notwithstanding this ugly and pitiful state of hers, yet she showed her- 
self within by her outward looks and countenance. When Caesar had made 
her lie down again, and sat by her bedside, Cleopatra began to clear and ex- 
cuse herself for that she had done, laying all to the fear she had of Antonius. 
Caesar, in contrary manner, disproved her in every point. Then she sud- 
denly altered her speech, and prayed him to pardon her, as though she 
were afraid to die, and desirous to live. At length, she gave him a brief 
and memorial of all the ready money and treasure she had. — PLUTARCH. 



SCENE II. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 1 8/ 

That — thou vouchsafing here to visit me, 

Doing the honour of thy lordliness 

To one so meek, — that mine own servant should 

Parcel the sum of my disgraces by 

Addition of his envy ! ^^ Say, good Caesar, 

That I some lady trifles have reserved, 

Immoment toys, things of such dignity 

As we greet modern ^^ friends withal ; and say, 

Some nobler token I have kept apart 

For Livia and Octavia, to induce 

Their mediation ; must I be unfolded 

With 19 one that I have bred ? The gods ! it smites me 

Beneath the fall I have. — [^To Seleu.] Pr'ythee, go hence ; 

Or I shall show the cinders of my spirit 

Through th' ashes of my glance : ^^ wert thou a man, 

Thou wouldst have mercy on me. 

Cces. Forbear, Seleucus. 

\_Exit Seleucus. 

Cleo. Be't known that we, the greatest, are misthought 
For things that others do ; and, when we fall, 

1" " Should add one more parcel or item to the sum of my disgraces, 
namely, his own malice." This use of envy for malice is very frequent. 

18 Modern in its old sense of ordinary or common. Also frequent. 

19 To denote the agent of a passive verb, with was often used instead of by. 

20 Here the Poet probably had in mind the state of Cleopatra's face and 
person at this time, as described by Plutarch. What with her great sorrow, 
and what with her violent usage of herself, her features were so disfigured 
and so wan, that they might be not unfitly spoken of as but the ashes of her 
former beauty ; yet her native fire was still living beneath them, and might 
be so roused as to flame up through them. In illustration of the text. Dr. 
Ingleby quotes what Cleopatra says a little before : " Thou shalt go back, I 
warrant thee; but I'll catch thine eyes, though they had wings." And he 
adds, " She would burn him up with her glance, — what Milton calls ' the 
charm of beauty's powerful glance ' ; and, though the fire had almost faded 
out, the very cinders would smite him." See Critical Notes. 



1 88 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT V. 

We answer others' merits ^^ in our name ; 
Are therefore to be pitied. 

CcBs. Cleopatra, 

Not what you have reserved, nor what acknowledged, 
Put we i' the roll of conquest : still be't yours. 
Bestow it at your pleasure ; and believe, 
Caesar's no merchant, to make prize with you 
Of things that merchants sold. Therefore be cheer'd ; 
Make not your thoughts your prison : ^^ no, dear Queen ; 
For we intend so to dispose you as 
Yourself shall give us counsel. Feed, and sleep : 
Our care and pity is so much upon you. 
That we remain your friend ; and so, adieu. 

Cleo. My master, and my lord ! ^^ 

21 " We suffer the penalties which others have merited \yyih€\x trespasses 
done under pretence of orders or authority from us." " I conceive," says 
Heath, " that this reflection of Cleopatra is intended to insinuate that the 
deficiency in the inventory ought to be imputed to Seleucus her accuser, 
and not to herself; and that he therefore was properly answerable for it." 

22 Probably meaning, simply, " Be not a prisoner in imagination." 

23 By chance there stood one Seleucus by, one of her treasurers, who, to 
seem a good servant, came straight to Caesar to disprove Cleopatra, that she 
had not set in all, but kept many things back of purpose. Cleopatra was 
in such a rage with him, that she flew upon him, and took him by the hair 
of the head, and boxed him soundly. Csesar fell a-laughing, and parted 
the fray. " Alas," said she, " O Caesar ! is not this a great shame and 
reproach, that thou having vouchsafed to come unto me, and done me this 
honour, poor wretch and caitiff creature, — that mine own servants should 
come now to accuse me ? though it may be I have reserved some jewels 
and trifles meet for women, but not for me, poor soul ! to set out myself 
withal ; but meaning to give some pretty presents and gifts unto Octavia 
and Livia, that, they making intercession for me to thee, thou mightest yet 
extend thy favour and mercy upon me." Caesar was glad to hear her say 
so, persuading himself that she had yet a desire to save her life. So he made 
answer, that he did not only give her that to dispose of at her pleasure 
which she had kept back, but further promised to use her more honourably 



SCENE II. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 1 89 

CcBs. Not SO. Adieu. 

\_Flourish. Exeunt C^sar and his Train, 

Cleo. He words me, girls, he words me, that I should not 
Be noble to myself: but, hark thee, Charmian. 

[ Whispers Charmian. 

Iras. Finish, good lady ; the bright day is done, 
And we are for the dark. 

Cleo. Hie thee again : 

I've spoke already, and it is provided ; 
Go put it to the haste. 

Char. Madam, I will. 

Re-enter Dolabella. 

Dot. Where is the Queen? 

Char. Behold, sir. \Exit. 

Cleo. Dolabella ! 

Dol. Madam, as thereto sworn by your command, 
Which my love makes religion to obey, 
I tell you' this : Caesar through Syria 
Intends his journey ; and, within three days, 
You with your children will he send before. 
Make your best use of this : I have perform'd 
Your pleasure and my promise. 

Cleo. Dolabella, 

I shall remain your debtor. 

Dol. I your servant. 

Adieu, good Queen ; I must attend on Caesar. 

Cleo. Farewell, and thanks. \Exit Dolabella. 

Now, Iras, what think'st thou? 

and bountifully than she would think for. And so he took his leave of her, 
supposing he had deceived her, but indeed he was deceived himself.— 
Plutarch. 



190 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT V. 

Thou, an Egyptian puppet, shalt be shown 
In Rome, as well as I : mechanic slaves, 
With greasy aprons, rules, and hammers, shall 
Uplift us to the view ; in their thick breaths, 
Rank of gross diet, shall we be enclouded, 
And forced to drink their vapour. 

Iras. The gods forbid ! 

Cleo. Nay, 'tis most certain, Iras : saucy lictors 
Will catch at us, like harlots ; and scald rhymers 
Ballad us out o' tune : the quick comedians ^^ 
Extemporally will stage us, and present 
Our Alexandrian revels ; Antony 
Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see 
Some squeaking Cleopatra boy ^^ my greatness 
r the posture of a trull. 

Iras. O the good gods ! 

Cleo. Nay, that's certain. 

Iras. I'll never see't ; for I am sure my nails 
Are stronger than mine eyes. 

Cleo. Why, that's the way 

To fool their preparation, and to conquer 

24 Quick for lively, or quick-witted, probably, — Scald is scabby or scurvy, 
and was used as a general term of contempt or disgust. — The dread of 
being " executed in a ballad" is a theme of frequent allusion with the dra- 
matists of Shakespeare's time. One of Falstaff's threats, in i Henry IV., ii. 
2, turns upon it : " An I have not ballads made on you all, and sung to filthy 
tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison." And in Massinger's Bondman, v. 3, 
one of the insurgent slaves, humbly begging he " may not twice be exe- 
cuted," when asked what he means, answers thus : " At the gallows first, 
and after in a ballad, sung to some villainous tune." 

25 The parts of females were commonly played by boys in Shakespeare's 
time ; there being no actresses on the English stage till after the Restoration. 
See Hamlet, page 116, note 69. — It may be needful to say that boy is here 
used as a verb. 



SCENE II. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. I9I 

Their most assured intents. 

Re-enter Charmian. 

Now, Charmian ! — 
Show me, my women, like a queen. — '- Go fetch 
My best attires : I am again for Cydnus, 
To meet Mark Antony : sirrah Iras,^^ go. — 
Now, noble Charmian, we'll dispatch indeed ; 
And, when thou'st done this chare, I'll give thee leave 
To play till doomsday. — Bring our crown and all. — 
Wherefore's this noise ? \_Exit Iras. A noise within. 

Enter one of the Guard. 

Guard. Here is a rural fellow 

That will not be denied your Highness' presence : 
He brings you figs. 

Cleo. Let him come in. \_Exit Guard. 

What poor an instrument ^7 
May do a noble deed ! he brings me liberty. 
My resolution's placed, and I have nothing 
Of woman in me : now from head to foot 
I'm marble-constant j now the fleeting ^8 Moon 
No planet is of mine. 

Re-enter one of the Guard, with Clown, bringing in a basket. 

Guard. This is the man. 

26 Sirrah was not anciently an appellation either reproachful or injurious ; 
being applied, with a sort of playful kindness, to children, friends, and ser- 
vants, and, what may seem more extraordinary, as in the present case, to 
women. See i Henry the Fourth, page 67, note 30, 

27 Our usage would require " What a poor instrument," or " How poor 
an instrument." The Poet has many similar exclamatives. See Julius 
Ccssar, page 65, note 14. 

28 Fleeting is but another form oifiitting ; changeable or inconstant. 



192 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT V. 

Cleo. Avoid, and leave him. — \_Exit Guard. 

Hast thou the pretty worm ^^ of Nilus there, 
That kills and pains not? 

Clown. Truly I have him ; but I would not be the party 
that should desire you to touch him, for his biting is immor- 
tal : those that do die of it do seldom or never recover. 

Cleo. Remember'st thou any that have died on't? 

Clown. Very many, men and women too. I heard of one 
of them no longer than yesterday : a very honest woman, but 
something given to he ; as a woman should not do, but in 
the way of honesty : how she died of the biting of it, what 
pain she felt, — truly, she makes a very good report o' the 
worm ; but he that will believe all that they say shall never 
be saved by half that they do : ^o but this is most fallible, 
the worm's an odd worm. 

Cleo. Get thee hence ; farewell. 

Clown. I wish you all joy of the worm. 

\_Sefs down his basket. 

Cleo. Farewell. 

Clown. You must think this, look you, that the worm will 
do his kind.31 

29 Worm was used for serpejit. The word is pure Saxon. We have it 
still in blind-worm and slow-worm. Shakespeare uses it several times. The 
notion of a serpent that caused death without pain was an ancient fable, 
and is here adopted with propriety. The worm of the Nile was the asp of 
the ancients, which is wholly unknown to us. 

30 Warburton observes that " Shakespeare's clowns are always jokers, and 
deal in sly satire." A part of the Clown's humour here seems to stand in a 
transposition of the words a// and half, so as to cause a little confusion. 

31 Will act out, or according to, his nature. This use of kind in its prim- 
itive sense is quite frequent. See Hamlet, page 59, note 18. — Plutarch: 
" Now, whilst she was at dinner, there came a countryman and brought her 
a basket. The soldiers that warded at the gates asked him straight what 
he had in his basket. He opened his basket, and took out the leaves that 



SCENE II. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. I93 

Cleo. Ay, ay ) farewell. 

Clown. Look you, the worm is not to be trusted but in 
the keeping of wise people ; for, indeed, there is no goodness 
in the worm. 

Cleo. Take thou no care ; it shall be heeded. 

Clown. Very good. Give it nothing, I pray you, for it is 
not worth the feeding. 

Cleo. Will it eat me ? 

Clown. You must not think I am so simple but I know 
the Devil himself will not eat a woman: I know that a 
woman is a dish for the gods, if the Devil dress her not. But, 
truly, these same whoreson devils do the gods great harm in 
their women ; for, in every ten that they make, the devils mar 
five. 

Cleo., Well, get thee gone ; farewell. 

Clown. Yes, forsooth ; I wish you joy o' the worm. \Exit 

Re-enter Iras, with a robe, crown, dr'c. 

\ Cleo. Give me my robe, put on my crown ; I have 

Immortal longings in me : now no more 

The juice of Egypt's grape shall moist this lip : 

Yare, yare, good Iras ; quick ! Methinks I hear 

Antony call ; I see him rouse himself 

To praise my noble act ; I hear him mock 

The luck of Caesar, which the gods give men 

T' excuse their after wrath. — Husband, I come : 

Now to that name my courage prove my title ! 

I'm fire and air ; my other elements 

covered the figs, and showed them that they were figs he brought. They 
all of them marvelled to see so goodly figs. The countryman laughed to 
hear them, and bade them take some, if they would. They believed he told 
them truly, and so bade him carry them in." 



194 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT V. 

I give to baser life .32 — So ; have you done ? 
Come then, and take the last warmth of my lips. 
Farewell, kind Charmian ; — Iras, long farewell. ) 

\_Kisses them. Iras falls and dies?^ 
Have I the aspic in my lips ? Dost fall ? 
If thou and nature can so gently part. 
The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch, 
Which hurts, and is desired. Dost thou lie still? 
If thus thou vanishest, thou tell'st the world 
It is not worth leave-taking. 

Char. Dissolve, thick cloud, and rain ; that I may say 
The gods themselves do weep ! 

Cleo. This proves me base : 

If she first meet the curled Antony, 
He'll make demand of her, and spend that kiss 
Which is my Heaven to have. — Come, thou mortal wretch,^'* 
\_To an asp, which she applies to her breast. 
With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate ^s 
Of life at once untie : poor venomous fool, 

32 According to the old philosophy there were four elements, fire, air, 
earth, and water, of which all things were composed. In King Henry V., 
ill. 7, the Dauphin describes his horse thus : " He is pure air axidjlre ; and 
the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him." See, also, 
Julius Ccssar, page 174, note 9. 

33 Iras must be supposed to have applied an asp to her arm while her 
mistress was settling her dress, to accoimt for her falling so soon. 

34 Mortal, here, is deadly ; that which kills, not that which dies. See Mac- 
beth, page 68, note 6. — Wretch is used as a familiar term of endearment. — • 
Plutarch : " Some report that this aspic was brought unto her in the basket 
with figs, and that she had commanded them to hide it under the fig-leaves, 
that, when she should think to take out the figs, the aspic should bite her 
before she should see her ; howbeit, that, when she would have taken away 
the leaves for the figs, she perceived it, and said, ' Art thou here, then ? ' 
And so, her arm being naked, she put it to the aspic to be bitten." 

35 Intrinsicate is intricate or involved. See Ki^ng Lear, page 105, note 16. 



SCENE II. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 1 95 

Be angry, and dispatch. O, couldst thou speak, 
That I might hear thee call great Caesar ass 
Unpolicied ! 

Char. O eastern star ! 

Cleo. Peace, peace ! 

Dost thou not see my baby at my breast, 
That sucks the nurse asleep ? 

Char. O, break ! O, break ! 

Cleo. As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as gentle, — 
O Antony ! — Nay, I will take thee too. — 

\_Applying another asp to her ar??L 
What should I stay — [Dies, 

Char. In this vile world ? — So, fare thee well. — 
Now boast thee, death, in thy possession lies 
A lass unparallel'd. — Downy windows, close ; 
And golden Phoebus never be beheld 
Of eyes again so royal ! — Your crown's awry ; 
I'll mend it, and then play.^^ 

Enter the Guard, rushing in. 

I Guard. Where is the Queen? 

Char. Speak softly, wake her not. 

I Guard. Caesar hath sent — 

Char. Too slow a messenger. \_AppIies an asp. 

— O, come apace, dispatch : I partly feel thee. 

1 Guard. Approach, ho ! All's not well ; Caesar's beguiled. 

2 Guard. There's Dolabella sent from Caesar ; call him. 
I Guard. What work is here ! — Charmian, is this well 

done? 
Char. It is well done, and fitting for a princess 

36 Charmian remembers the words of Cleopatra, "When thou hast done 
this chare, I'll give thee leave to play till doomsday." 



196 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT V, 

Descended of so many royal kings. 

Ah, soldier ! ^7 [^Bus. 

Re-enter Dolabella. 

Dot. How goes it here ? 

2 Guard. All dead. 

Dol. Caesar, thy thoughts 

Touch their effects in this : thyself art coming 
To see perform'd the dreaded act which thou 
So sought'st to hinder. 

Within. A way there, a way for Caesar ! 

Re-enter C^sar and his Train. 

Dol. O sir, you are too sure an augurer ; 
That you did fear is done. 

Cces. Bravest at the last, 

She levell'd ^s at our purposes, and, being royal, 

37 After Cleopatra had dined, she sent a certain table [letter] written and 
sealed unto Caesar, and commanded them all to go out of the tombs where 
she was, but the two women ; then she shut the door to her. Caesar, when 
he received this table, and began to read her lamentation and petition, 
requesting him that he would let her be buried with Antonius, found 
straight what she meant, and thought to have gone thither himself : how- 
beit, he sent one before in all haste that might be, to see what it was. Her 
death was very sudden : for those whom Caesar sent unto her ran thither in 
all haste possible, and found the soldiers standing at the gate, mistrusting 
nothing, nor understanding of her death. But, when they had opened the 
doors, they found Cleopatra stark-dead, laid upon a bed of gold, attired and 
arrayed in her royal robes, and one of her two women, which was called 
Iras, dead at her feet ; and her other woman, called Charmian, half dead, 
and trembling, trimming the diadem which Cleopatra wore upon her head. 
One of the soldiers, seeing her, angrily said unto her, " Is this well done, 
Charmian ? " " Very well," she said again, " meet for a princess descended 
from the race of so many noble kings." She said no more, but fell down 
dead hard by the bed. — PLUTARCH. 

38 To level is, properly, to take aim, hence to hit. Shakespeare repeatedly 



SCENE II. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 1 9/ 

Took her own way. — The manner of their deaths ? 
I do not see them bleed. 

Dol. Who was last with them ? 

I Gtcard. A simple countryman, that brought her figs : 
This was his basket. 

Cces. Poison'd, then. 

I Guard. O Caesar, 

This Charmian Hved but now ; she stood and spake : 
I found her trimming up the diadem 
On her dead mistress ; trembhngly she stood, 
And on the sudden dropp'd. 

CcBs. O noble weakness ! — 

If they had swallow'd poison, 'twould appear 
By external swelling : but she looks like sleep, 
As she would catch another Antony 
In her strong toil of grace. 

Dol. Here, on her breast. 

There is a vent of blood, and something blown ; ^9 
The like is on her arm. 

I Guard. This is an aspic's trail ; and these fig-leaves 
Have slime upon them, such as th' aspic leaves 
Upon the caves ^^ of Nile. 

uses the substantive level for range or line of aim ; as he also often uses 
aim for guess ; and guess gives the right sense of level here. 

^'^ Blown for swollen or puffed. See page 150, note 4. — Plutarch; 
" Some say that they found two little pretty bitings in her arm, scant to be 
discerned ; the which it seemeth Caesar himself gave credit unto, because 
in his triumph he carried Cleopatra's image with an aspic biting of her arm. 
And thus goeth the report of her death. Now Caesar, though he was mar- 
vellous sorry for the death of Cleopatra, yet wondered at her noble mind 
and courage, and therefore commanded she should be nobly buried, and 
laid by Antonius ; and willed also that her two women should have hon- 
ourable burial." 

40 Alexandria was supplied with water brought from the Nile in under- 
ground canals; which may be the caves meant. See Critical Notes. 



IQo ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. ACT V. 

C(zs. • Most probable 

That so she died ; for her physician tells me 
She hath pursued conclusions infinite 
Of easy ways to die.^i — Take up her bed ; 
And bear her women from the monument. 
She shall be buried by her Antony : 
No grave upon the Earth shall clip in it 
A pair so famous. High events as these 
Strike those that make them ; and their story is 
No less in pity than his glory which 
Brought them to be lamented. Our army shall 
In solemn show attend this funeral ; 
And then to Rome. — Come, Dolabella, see 
High order in this great solemnity. \_Exeunt 

41 To pursue conclusions is to try experiments. See Hamlet, page i66, 
note 36. — Plutarch's account of the matter is as follows : " Cleopatra was 
very careful in gathering all sorts of poisons together, to destroy men. 
Now, to make proof of those poisons which made men die with least pain, 
she tried it upon condemned men in prison. For, when she saw the poi- 
sons that were sudden and vehement, and brought speedy death with 
grievous torments; and, in contrary manner, that such as were more mild 
and gentle had not that quick speed and force to make one die suddenly; 
she afterwards went about to prove the stinging of snakes and adders, and 
made some to be applied unto men in her sight, some in one sort, some in 
another. So, when she had daily made divers and sundry proofs, she 
found none of them all she had proved so fit as the biting of an aspic, the 
which causeth only a heaviness of the head, without swooning or com- 
plaining, and bringeth a great desire also to sleep, with a little sweat in the 
face ; and so by little and little taketh away the senses and vital powers, no 
living creature perceiving that the patients feel any pain." 



CRITICAL NOTES. 



Act I., Scene i. 

Page 40. Whom every thing becomes, to chide, to laugh, 

To weep ; whose every passion fully strives, &c. — The original 
has who instead of whose. Corrected in the second foHo, 

Act I., Scene 2 

P. 41. 0, that I knew this husband, which, you say, must charge 
his horns with garlands ! — The original has change instead of charge. 
Corrected by Theobald and Warburton. 

P. 43. Dear goddess, hear that prayer of the people. — Mr. P. A. 
Daniel would read "prayer of thy people." And so I suspect it should 
be. 

P- 43. Saw_yoz^ my lord? — So the second folio. The first has Save. 

P, 44. O, then we bring forth weeds 

When our quick minds lie still ; &c. — The original has windes. 
Corrected by Warburton. The two words were apt to be confounded. 

P. 45. From Sicyon, ho, the news I — The original reads "From 
Scicion how the newes ? " Corrected by Dyce. 

P. 46. Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know. 
My idleness doth hatch. — Ho, Enobarbus ! ' 

Re-enter Enobarbus. 

— The original makes Enobarbus enter directly after hatch, and then 



200 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

has ^^How now Enobarbus," after his re-entrance. But it is clear that 
Antony calls Enobarbus from another room, and he returns upon the 
call. Corrected partly by Capell, and partly by Dyce ; the latter noting 
as follows : " In all probability the author's manuscript had ^How Eno- 
barbus,' to which some transcriber or the original compositor, who did 
not understand what was meant, added now. How frequently occurs 
as the old speUing of ho.'^ 

P. 46. Under a compelling occasion, let women die. The original 
reads " Under a compelling an occasion." 

P. 47. I shall break 

The cause of our expedience to the Queen, 

And get her leave to part. — The original has love instead of 
leave. Corrected by Pope. The same misprint occurs elsewhere. 

P. 48. Say, our pleasure. 

To such whose place is under us, requires 

Our quick remove from hence. — The original has places and 
require. Corrected in the second folio. 



Act I., Scene 3. 

P. 53. Now, by my sword, &c. — So the second folio. The first 
omits my. 

P. 53. How this Herculean Roman does become 

The carriage of his chafe. — As this passage is something ob- 
scure and doubtful, Staunton substitutes chief for chafe, taking chief as 
referring to Hercules, from whom Antony claimed descent. This is 
certainly plausible, perhaps more : still I am apt to think that chafe is 
right. See foot-note 15. 

P. 54. Upon your sword 

Sit laurell'd victory I — So the second folio. The first has "5?/ 
Lawrell victory." 



CRITICAL NOTES. 20I 



Act I., Scene 4. 



P. 54. It is not CcEsar^s natural vice to hate 

Our great competitor. — The original has One instead of Our 
Corrected by Heath. 

P. 54. Hardly gave audience, or 

Vouchsafed to think he had partners : you shall find there 

A man who is the abstract of all faults, &c. — The original has 

Vouchsafe and abstracts. The latter was corrected in the second folio, 

which also reads Did vouchsafe. 

P. 55. Yet must Antony 

No way excuse his soils, &c. — The original \\zs>foyles instead of 
soils. Corrected by Malone. 

P. 55. Full surfeits, and the dryness of his bones. 

Call on him for^t. — Collier's second folio substitutes Fall for 
Call. Rightly, I suspect. See, however, foot-note 5. 

P. 55. But to confound such time. 

That drums him from his sport, and speaks as loud 
As his own state and ours ! They're to be chid 
As we rate boys, who, being m,ature in knowledge. 
Pawn their experience to their present pleasure. 
And so rebel to judgment. — The original reads " As his owne 
State, and ours, His to be chid: As we rate Boyes," &c. With this 
reading, who necessarily refers to boys ; which surely cannot be right, 
for boys are not mature in knowledge or experience. To remove the 
difficulty, Hanmer substituted imjnature for being mature : but this 
disorders the sense nearly if not quite as much the other way ; for 
boys, immature in knowledge, have not experience to pawn, nor judg- 
ment to rebel against. Mr, P. A, Daniel would read " he''s to be chid," 
&c.; but this necessitates four other changes, — his for their in both 
places, and Pawns and rebels for Pawn and rebel. As the single 
change of His to theyWe gives the same meaning, I prefer that one to 
the five which he would make. Shakespeare has repeated instances 



202 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

of infinitive clauses used exclamatively. In this case, I take it that the 
transcriber or printer did not understand the preceding exclamation, and 
so undertook to set things right by sophisticating the two sentences into 
a sort of literal continuity. 

P. 56, And the ebVd man, ne'er loved till not worth love, 

Comes dear'd by being lack'd. — The original has " till ne^er 
worth love," and y^^zrV instead of dear^d. The first correction is Ma- 
lone's, the second Warburton's. 

P. 56. Goes to and back, lacqueying the varying tide, &:c. — So Theo- 
bald. The original has *' lacking the varrying tyde." 

P. 57. Leave thy lascivious wassails. — The original has Vassailes. 
Corrected by Pope. 

P. 57. Assemble we immediate council. — So the second folio. The 
first has me instead of we. 

P. 58. Doubt not, sir ; 

I know it for my bond. — The original has " I knew it." Cor- 
rected by Walker. 

Act I., Scene 5. 

P. 60. And soberly did mount an arm-girt steed. 

Who neigh'' d so high, that what I would have spoke 
Was beastly dumb'd by him. — Instead of arm-girt, the origi- 
nal has Arme-gaunt, which I can nowise interpret to any fitting sense. 
Warburton says, " Worn lean and thin by much service in war." But, 
if that were the case, how should the poor beast " neigh so high " ? 
Besides, it does not seem likely that Antony, with the riches of Egypt 
at his command, would have been riding a gaunt and overworn steed. 
The correction is Hanmer's. Several others have been proposed, — 
termagant, arrogant, 2,TsA rampant. See foot-note 6. — The original 
also has dumbe instead of dumbed. Corrected by Theobald. 

P. 60. The violence of either thee becojnes. 

So does it no man else. — So the second folio. The first has 
man's instead of man. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 203 



Act II., Scene i. 

P. 62. My power's a crescent, and my auguring hope 

Says it will come to th^ full. — The original reads " My powers 
are Cressent." The correction is Theobald's ; who notes as follows : 
" It is evident beyond a doubt, that the Poet's allusion is to the Moon ; 
and that Pompey would say, He is yet but a half-moon or crescent ; but 
his hopes tell him that crescent will come to a full orb." 

P. 63. His brother warr'd upon him. — So the second folio. The 
first has wan^d. 

Act II., Scene 2. 

P. 67. If you' II patch a quarrel, 

As matter zvhole you lack to make it with. 

It must not be with this. — The original reads "As matter whole 
you have to make it with." This, apparently, gives just the opposite 
of the sense intended. Rowe, and, after him, Dyce and the Cambridge 
Editors, insert not after have. I had conjectured lack, but found after- 
wards that I had been anticipated by an anonymous waiter. See foot- 
note 8. 

P. 67. You patched up your excuse. — So Walker ; conjectured also 
by Dyce. The original has excuses. 

P. 70. Say not so, Agrippa : 

If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof 

Were well deserved of rashness. — The original reads " Say not, 
say Agrippa," and also has proofe instead of reproof The first correc- 
tion is Rowe's, the second Hanmer's. 

P. 71. Truths would be but tales. 

Where now half tales be truths. — So Pope. The original is 
without but. Steevens proposed as, and Capell printed " truths would 
then be tales." The latter answers just as well for metre, but not, I 
think, for sense. 



204 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

P. 72. About the Mount Misenum. — The original has Mesena. Cor- 
rected by Rowe. 

P. 76. To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool. — The original 
reads " To glove the delicate cheekes." Corrected by Rowe. 

P. 76. Her gentlewomen^ like the Nereides, 

So many mermaids, tended her V the eyes. 

And made their bends adornings. — For adornings Warburton 
substituted adoring, which is approved by Walker. But the change 
seems to me far from being an improvement: I rather agree with 
Heath in " doubting whether such an affected flat expression came from 
Shakespeare." — Dr. Ingleby, in his Shakespeare Hertneneutics, notes 
upon the text as follows : " We read, after Zachary Jackson, ' made the 
bends' adornings.' Both the ' eyes ' and ' bends ' were parts of Cleo- 
patra's barge. The eyes of a ship are the hawseholes ; the bends are 
the wales, or thickest planks in the ship's sides. North has it, * others 
tending the tackle and ropes of the barge ' ; which settles the question 
as to the meaning of eyes ; and, that once settled, the other part of the 
interpretation is inevitable. What could the hardy soldier, Enobarbus, 
care for the curves of the mermaids' bodies ? To us it is obvious that 
if the girls tended Cleopatra at the eyes, they would, there, be the 
natural ornaments of the bends." — Rather forced, perhaps, but inge- 
nious enough. Still I am not sure but it may be right. See foot- 
note 28. 

Act II., Scene 3. 

P. 79. / have not kept my square ; but that to come 

Shall all be done by tK rule. Good night, dear lady. 

Octa. Good night, sir. — So the second folio. The first 
makes Octavia's speech a part of Antony's. Ritson's observation ap- 
pears to be just : " Antony has already said ' Good night, sir,' to Caesar 
in the first three words of his speech. The repetition would be 
absurd." 

P. 79. Would I had never come from thence, nor you hither. — So 
, Mason. The original has thither instead of hither. The former would 
naturally refer to Egypt, and so give a wrong meaning. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 205 

P. 79. / see it in my notion, have it not in my tongue. — So Theo- 
bald. Instead of notion, the original has motion, which Warburton 
explains " the divinitory agitation." The explanation is, I think, enough 
of itself to condemn the old reading. See foot-note i. 

P. 79. Thy demon, that thy spirit which keeps thee, is 
Noble, courageous, high, unm,atchable. 
Where Ccesar's is not ; but, near him, thy angel 
Becomes a fear, as being overpowered. — In the first of these 
lines, the second folio reads "Thy Dsemon, thafs thy spirit," &c. ; per- 
haps rightly. In the fourth line, Thirlby proposed to read " Becomes 
afeard,'' which some have adopted. Both of these changes are 
favoured by the corresponding passage in North's Plutarch : " For thy 
Demon, said he {that is to say, the good angel, and spirit that keepeth 
thee) is affraied of his ; and being coragious and high when he is 
alone, becometh fearful and timerous when he cometh neare unto the 
other." See, however, foot-note 2. 

P. 80. I say again, thy spirit 

Is all afraid to govern thee near him. ; 

But, he away, Vw noble. — The original reads " But he alway 
'tis Noble." Corrected by Pope. 

Act II., Scene 4. 

P. 81. We shall, 

As I conceive the journey, be at th' Mount 
Before you, Lepidus. — So the second folio. The first reads 
" Be at Mount." 

Act II., Scene 5. 

P. 82. My music playing far off, 1 will betray 

Tawny-^nrUdi fishes. — The original has " Tawny yf«^ fishes." 
Corrected by Theobald. 

P. ^^. Antony's dead? If thou say so, thou villain. 

Thou kilPst thy mistress. — The original lacks the second thou. 



206 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

Walker proposes " If thou do say so, villain." This would indeed 
make good the metre, but would take the stress off from so, where the 
sense seems to require it. 

P. 2>'Tj. But there's no goodness in thy face : if Antony 
Be free and healthful, why so tart a favour 
To trumpet such good tidings ? — So Rowe and Collier's second 
folio. The original lacks why, which is clearly needful to the sense, 
let alone the metre. 

P. 84. Yet, if thou say Antony lives, is well, &c. — The original has 
" tis well." The context evidently requires is ; and so Capell reads. 

P. 86. O, that his fault should make a knave of thee. 

That art in what thou'rt sure of! — One of the most trouble- 
some passages in this play. The original reads " That art not what 
th' art sure of." Here the last clause is surely too tame and truismatic 
a thing for either Shakespeare or Cleopatra to say on such an occa- 
sion. Various changes have been made or proposed. Of these per- 
haps the best is Mason's: "That art not! What! thou'rt oft?'''' 
Hanmer reads " That say'st but what thou'rt sure of ! " and Mr. Grant 
White, "That art but what thou'rt sure of! " But I cannot see that 
any of these changes really helps the matter at all ; and all of them, it 
seems to me, quite miss the right sense. Perhaps that sense would 
come best by reading "That sharest in what thou'rt sure of! " But 
this would probably be too bold a change, though not bolder than 
Hanmer's. Shakespeare repeatedly expresses the thought, that the 
bearing of ill news has a blighting effect upon the bearer. So \xx2 King 
Henry IV., i. i : "Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news hath but a 
losing office ; and his tongue sounds ever after as a sullen bell," &c. 
And Cleopatra's meaning evidently is, that the messenger is a sort of 
particeps criminis ; that the contagion of his knavish message taints 
him into a knave ; or, in other words, that he is so far in the guilt of 
what he reports, that the resentment may fitly light upon him. See 
foot-note 5. 

Act II., Scene 6. 

P. 88. Made the all-honour' d, honest Roman, Brutus, &c. — So the 
second folio. The first omits the. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 20/ 

P. 89. Be pleased to tell us — 

For this is from the present — how you take 
The offer we have sent you. — The original has offers ; an error 
which the context readily points out. In the second line, Mr. P. A. 
Daniel would read " from the purpose.^' But does not present give the 
same sense ? 

p. 89. To part with unhack'd edges, and bear back 

Our targs undinted. — Instead of targs, the original has targes, 
which cannot be pronounced as one syllable, and surely there ought 
not to be two here. Walker says, " the plural targes seems to have 
been formerly a monosyllable, as in French, where its oldest form is 
targues.^'' Perhaps it should be targe\ as the Poet has corpse^ for 
corpses, horse' for horses, &c. 

P. 90. I have fair meanings, Sir. 

Ant. And fair words to them. — The 

original has meaning instead of meanings. 

P. 9 1 . No more of that : he did so. — So the third folio. The earlier 
editions omit of- 

Act II., Scene 7. 

P. 96. These quicksands, Lepidus, 

Keep off them, or you sink. — So Walker. The original has 
*^for you sink," See note on " And in my conduct shall your ladies 
come"; &c., / Henry IV., page 195. 

P. 97. And, when we are put off, fall to their throats: 

All then is thine. — The original reads "AU then is thine." 
Corrected by Pope. 

P. 98. The third part, then, is drunk. — The original has " then he 
is drunk." 

P, 98. Ifs monstrous labour, when I wash my brain. 

And it gcovfs, fouler. — The original has grow instead of grows* 



208 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

P. 99. T?i€ holding every man shall bear as loud 

As his strong sides can volley. — The original reads " every man 
shall beatr Corrected by Theobald. 

P. 99. Let me request you off: our graver business 

Frowns at this levity. — The old editions read " Let ir.e re- 
quest you ofovx graver businesse," &c. Corrected by Rowe. 

P. 100. Men. No, to my cabin. — 

These drums I these trumpets, &c. — The original omits the pre- 
fix here, and runs the speech of Menas in with the preceding one of 
Enobarbus. 

Act III., Scene i. 

P. loi. So thy grand captain Antony 

Shall set thee on triumphant chariot, &c. — So Walker. The 
original has chariots. But vi^hat business has the plural here? 

P. 102. Without the which a soldier and his siuord 

Grants scarce distinction. — Collier's second folio substitutes 
Gains for Grants. I suspect we ought to read "a soldier, _^ow his 
sword. Gains," &c. The meaning evidently is, " a soldier scarce dif- 
fers, or is distinguished, from his sword "; but the language is harsh and 
obscure. 

Act III., Scene 2. 

P. 103. Of Antony ? O thou Arabian bird! — The original has " Oh 
Antony." Corrected by Hanmer. 

P. 103. Hoo I hearts, tongues, figures, scribes, &c. — The original has 
figure. Hanmer's correction. 

P. 104. The fortress of it ; for far better might we 

Have loved without this mean, &c. — So Capell and Walker. 
The original omits y^r. Hanmer inserted jtzz/^t/^. The words yJzr and 
for are so much alike, that one of them might well drop out. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 2O9 

P. 105. Her tongue will not obey her heart, nor can 

Her heart inform her tongue : the swan's down-ftather 
Thus stands upon the swell at full of tide, &c. — The original 
has 772^/ instead of Thus, and "at the full of Tide." The latter was 
corrected in the second folio. The other is Walker's conjecture ; and 
I the rather adopt it, because the original has a period after tongue. 

P. 106. What willingly he did confound he waiVd, 

Believe't, till I wept too. — So Theobald. The original has 
weepe instead of wept. 

Act III., Scene 4. 

P. 109. When perforce he could not 

But pay me terms of honour, cold and sickly 
He vented them ; most narrow measure lent me : 
When the best hint was given him, he not took't. 
Or did it from his teeth. — In the third of these lines, the orig- 
inal has then instead of them, and in the fourth lookH instead of took't. 
The former correction is Rowe's, the latter Thirlby's. 

P. 1 10. Sure, the good gods will mock me presently, 

When I shall pray, &c. — So Dyce. The original lacks Sure. 
Steevens inserted And. 

P. no. Better I were not yours 

Than yours so branchless. — So the second folio. The first has 
"Thanjj/oz^n" 

P. 1 1 J . The Jove of power make me, most weak, most weak. 

Your reconciler I — So the second folio. The first has You in- 
stead of Your. 

Act III., Scene 5. 

P. 112. Then, world, thou hast a pair of chops, no more: 
And, throw between the?n all the food thou hast. 
They'll grind the one the other. — The original reads " Then 
would thou hadst a paire," and " They'le grinde the other." The for- 
mer correction is Hanmer's, the ktter Johnson's. 



2IO ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 



Act III,, Scene 6. 

P. 113. His sons he there proclaim' d the kings of kings. — The orig- 
inal reads " His Sonnes hither proclaimed the King of Kings." Cor- 
rected by Johnson and Rowe. 

P. 114. The ostentation of our love, which left unshown 

Is often felt unloved. — The original reads "Is often left un- 
lov'd." Collier's second folio substitutes held for left. Singer pro- 
posed/^//, as it consists of the same letters as left, and gives substan- 
tially the same sense as held. The passage is commonly so pointed as 
to make which, referring to love, the subject of is felt ; whereas it 
should be the clause itself, — "which being \t.i\. unshown," or "the 
leaving of which unshown." 

P. 115. Being an obstruct Hween his lust and him. — The original 
has abstract. Warburton's correction. 

P. 115. Till we perceived both how you were wrong'd, 

And we in negligejzt danger. — So Capell. The original reads 
" Till we perceived both how you were wrong ledP 

P. 1 1 6. And the high gods. 

To do you justice, make them ministers 

Of tis and those that love you. — The original has ^^ makes his 
Ministers." The correction is Capell's. Theobald reads " make their 
ministers." 

Act III., Scene 7. 

P. 117. Is't not denounced Against us? why should not we 

Be there iit person ? — So Rowe and Capell. The original has 
"If not, denounc'd against us, why should not we," &c. — The correc- 
tion is approved by the corresponding passage in North's Plutarch : 
" Now, after that Caesar had made sufficient preparation, he proclaimed 
open warre against Cleopatra, and made the people to abolish the 
power and empire of Antonius, because he had before given it up unto 
a woman." 



CRITICAL NOTES. 211 

P. 117. Take from his heart, take from his brain, from'' s time. 

What should not thence be spared. — So Walker. The original 
has then instead of thence. 

P. 1 19. I have full sixty sails, Ccesar none better. — The original reads 
" I have sixty Sailes." The correction is Seymour's. Hanmer reads 
" Why, I have," &c. 

Act III., Scene 10. 

P. 122. On our side like the tokened pestilence. 

Where death is sure. Yon ribald nag of Egypt, 
Whom leprosy o''ertake, &c. — So Hanmer. The original has 
"Yon ribaudred Nagge." This damages the metre; and I cannot 
perceive the sense of red thus tagged on to ribaud. Nor is ribaudred 
met with anywhere else. Bishop Hall has ribaldish, and so I suspect 
the Poet wrote here. Ribaud is merely another spelling of ribald. 

Act III., Scene ii. 

P. 125. Let \hz.t be left 

Which leaves itself. — The original has "let them be left." 

P. lid. Her head-s declined, and death will seize her, but 

Your comfort make the rescue. — Instead of " will seize her," 
which is the reading of the second folio, the first has "will cease her." 
I strongly suspect that the latter ought to be retained, for the Poet 
repeatedly uses cease as a causative verb. See vol. viii. page 248, 
note 3. — The original has makes instead of make. As but, here, is 
clearly equivalent to unless, or the exceptive but, as it is called, there 
can be no doubt that make is right. 

P. 127. And thou shouldst tow me after : o'er my spirit 

TYiy full supremacy thozi knew'st, &c. — Instead of tow and Thy, 
the original has stowe and The. The first was corrected by Rowe, the 
other by Theobald. 

P. 127. My sword, made weak by m,y affection, would 

Obey it on all causes. — So Capell. The original has " on all 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 



Act III., Scene 12. 

P. 128. I was of late as petty to his ends 

As is the morn-dew on the myrtle-leaf 

To the grand sea. — So Hanmer and Walker. The original 
reads "To his grand Sea." 

P. 129. From Antony win Cleopatra : promise. 

And in our name, what she requires ; add more 
Offers from thine invention : women are not, &c. — The origi- 
nal reads " adde more From thine invention, offers." Various changes 
have been made or proposed ; but the transposition of offers appears to 
me the simplest. When I first made it, I was not aware that Mr. White 
had proposed the same. Walker proposes " and more Offer from thine 
invention." 

P. 1 29. Try thy cunning, Thyreus. — Here and elsewhere, the origi- 
nal has Thidias. Corrected by Theobald. 

Act III., Scene 13. 

P. 130. What though you fled 

From that great face of war, whose several ranges 
Frighted each other, . why should he follow you ? — So Pope. 
The original onixX.'s, you. 

P. 131. I dare him therefore 

To lay his gay caparisons apart, 

And answer me declined, &c. — So Pope. The original has 
comparisons instead of caparisons. See note on " The Thane of Caw- 
dor 'gan a dismal conflict," &c., Macbeth, i. 2. 

P. 131. Against the blown rose may they stop their noses 

ThatkneeVd unto the buds. — So Walker. The original has 
nose instead of noses. 

P. 132. Not to consider in what case thou stand'' st. 

Further than he is Caesar. — The original reads " Further than 
he is CcBsars." Corrected in the second folio. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 21 3 

P. 132. He knows that you embraced not Antony 

As you did love, but as you fear' d him. — The original has em- 
brace instead of embraced. Capell's correction. 

P. 133. And put yourself under his shroud, who is 

The universal landlord. — So Collier's second folio. The origi' 
nal is without the words who is, thus leaving the line badly mutilated. 
Hanmer fills it up with the great, which is not nearly so good. 

P. 133. Say to great Ccesar this : In deputation 

I kiss his conquering hand : &c. — So Warburton and Collier's 
second folio. The original has disputation. 

P. 135. Bring him again : \h\.s Jack of Casar^s shall 

Bear us an errand to him. — So Pope. The original has ^^ the 
Jacke." A little before, we have "Take hence this Jack." 

P. 135. O misery on't I — the wise gods seel our eyes ; 

In our own filth dark our clear judgments ; make us 
Adore our errors ; &c. — The original has drop instead of dark. 
The correction is Lettsom's, who quotes from Pericles, iv., Gower's 
speech: "This so darks m. Philoten all graceful marks." The use of 
to dark as a transitive verb, and in the sense of to dim or obscure, was 
not uncommon. The main difficulty with drop is, that gods cannot well 
be the subject of it, while it is obviously the subject both of seel and of 
m,ake. To say that in our own vices the gods darken or blind our judg- 
ments, is good sense ; but to say that in our own vices the gods drop 
our judgments, is neither sense nor English. 

P. 137. The next Ccssarion smite! — The original has smile instead 
of smite. Hanmer's correction. 

P. 137. By the discandying of this pelleted storm, &c. — The original 
has discandering. The correction is Thirlby's. See foot-note 19. 

P. 139. Is to be frighted out of fear ; and in that mood 
The dove will peck the estridge. I see still, 
A diminution iji our captain's brain 



214 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

Restores his heart. — So Hanmer and Walker. The original 
has " and I see still "; and being probably repeated by mistake from 
the line above. 

P 139. When valour preys on reason^ 

It eats the sword it fights with. — The original has " preys in 
reason." Rowe's correction. 

Act IV., Scene i. 

P, 140. Ccesar, we must think. 

When one so great begins to rage, Sec. — The original reads 
"Caesar must thinke." Ritson proposed "Caesar needs must think." 
But I prefer Walker's correction. 

P 140 Within our files there are. 

Of those that served Mark Antony of late, 

Enough to fetch him in See it be done. — So Pope. The orig- 
inal reads " See it done." 

Act IV., Scene 2. 

P. 141. Thou hast been rightly honest ; — so hast thou ; — 

And thou, — and thou, — and thou : &c. — And, at the begin- 
ning of the second line, is wanting in the original. Inserted by Rowe, 
and, as Dyce says, " positively required." 

P. 142. That I might do you service 

So good as you^ve done me. — The original omits me. Walker 
asks, " Does not the sense imperatively require ' So good as you've done 
me ' ? " 

P. 143. You take me in too dolorous a sense . 

I spake t' ^ov. for your comfort ; did desire you, &c — So The- 
obald and Walker. The original reads " For I spake to you for your 
comfort," &c. 

Act IV., Scene 3. 

P, 144. ^Tis the god Hercules, who Antony loved, 

Now leaves him. — So Collier's second folio. The original has 



CRITICAL NOTES. 21 5 

^whom Antony loved." The propriety of the change is evident. 
Rowe reads " who loved Antony." 

Act IV., Scene 4. 

P. 145, Come, my good fellow, put mine iron on. — The original reads 
"Come good Fellow, put thine iron on." But Antony has just called, 
^^ mine armour, Eros!" "Come, my good fellow" is Rowe's correc- 
tion. A little after, Antony says, " See'st thou, my good fellow." 

P. 145. Cleo. Nay, Fll help too. 

What's this for ? 

Ant Ah, let be, let be ! thou art 

The armourer of my heart ' false, false ; this, this. 
Cleo. Sooth, la, IHl help : thus it ?nust be. — In the original 
this stands as follows : 

Cleo. Nay, He helpe too, Antony. 
What's this for ? Ah let be, let be, thou art 
The Armourer of my heart : False, false : This, this, 
Sooth-law He helpe: Thus it must bee. 

For this strange piece of jumble and confusion it is difficult, perhaps 
impossible, to account. The correction is partly Hanmer's, and partly 
Malone's. 

P. 146. He that unbuckles this, till we do please 

To daff''t for our repose, shall hear a storm. — Collier's second 
folio changes hear to bear. Perhaps rightly. 

P. 146. Capt. The morn is fair. — Good morrow, general. — The 
original prefixes " Alex.'' to this speech. A very palpable error. 



Act IV., Scene 5. 

P. 147. Sold. The gods jnake this a happy day to Antony ! — To the 
first three speeches of the Soldier in this scene, the original prefixes 
"Eros." But the speaker is evidently the same person who remon- 
strated with Antony against fighting at sea, in iii. 7. The correction is 
Thirlby's. 



2l6 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 



Act IV., Scene 6. 

P. 149. Alexas did revolt, and went to Jewry on 
Affairs of Antony ; tkeredidpexsvia.de 

Great Herod to incline himself to Ccesar, &c, — The original has 
disswade ; which is proved to be wrong by the corresponding passage 
in North's Plutarch : " But he [Alexas] remained there, and betrayed 
Antonius. For where he should have kept Herodes from revolting 
from him, \\.e perswaded\iv!xs. to turne to Caesar." Corrected by Rowe. 

P. 150. I tell you true : best thsit you safe d the bringer 

Out of the host. — The original omits that. Inserted by 
Steevens. 

Act IV., Scene 8. 

P. 152. We've beat him to his camp. — Run one before. 

And let the Queen know of our gests. — The original has 
guests. The correction is Theobald's, " as Mr. Warburton likewise pre- 
scribes." 

P. 152. You^ve shown all Hectors. Go, 

Enter the city, clip your wives, your friends, &c.- — So 
Walker. The original is without Go. 

P. 154. Trumpeters, 

With brazen din blast you the city's ear ; 
Make mingle with our rattling tabourines ; &c. — Mr. P. 
A. Daniel says, " In third line, for Afake mingle, read Make^t tingle ; 
that is, Make the city's ear tingle with our rattling tabourines." A very 
ingenious conjecture, and perhaps right. But is not Antony still 
addressing the trumpeters, and calling on them to unite with the drum- 
mers in raising a huge din? 

Act IV., Scene 10. 

P. 156. But this it is i Our foot 

Upon the hills adjoining to the city 
Shall stay with us : order for sea is given ; 



CRITICAL NOTES. 21/ 

They have put forth the haven : mount we, then, 
Where their appointment we may best discover, , 

And look on their endeavour. — The words mount we, then, are 
not in the original, which has a gap in the text, so that no sense can be 
fairly made of it without some such addition. With those words, of 
course the meaning is, " let us mount the hills aforesaid." Various 
insertions have been made ; such 2a further on, by Rowe ; hie we on, 
by Capell ; lefs seek a spot, by Malone ; forward, now, by Dyce ; and 
ascend we then, by White. Of these, the last seems to me the best % 
and I should have adopted it, but that it overfills the verse. 



Act IV., Scene 12. 

P. 157. Swallows have built 

In Cleopatra's sails their nests : the augurers 
Say they know not, — they cannot tell ; &c. — The original has 
Auguries. The correction is Capell's. ♦ 

P. 157. The hearts 

That spaniel'd me at heels, to whom I gave, &c. — The original 
h.3iS pannelled instesid oi spanieVd. Corrected by Hanmer. 

P. 158, For poor'' st diininutives, for doits. — So Warburton. The 
original has Dolts instead of doits. 

P. 159. To th' Roman boy she hath sold me, and I fall 

Under this plot. — So Hanmer. The old text has ^^ young 
Roman Boy." Dyce remarks oi young, that " while it injures the metre, 
it adds nothing to the sense." Probably the Poet wrote boy as a sub- 
stitute for young, and then both words got printed together. " Roman 
boy " conveys a sneer, which "young Roman " does not. 

Act IV., Scene 14. 

P 162. Unarm me, Eros ; the long dafs task is done. 

And we must sleep. — So Rowe and Collier's second folio. The 
original has " Unarme Eros." 



2l8 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

P. 163. Condemn myself to lack 

The courage of a woman ; less noble-minded 

Than she which by her death our Ccesar tells, &c. — The origi- 
inal has " lesse Noble minde.''^ Corrected by Rowe. Walker also says, 
"Read less noble-minded.^^ 

P. 165. I learned of thee. How! not jei dead? not dead? — 

The guard, ho ! — O, dispatch me ! — So Pope. The original 
omits yet. — Here, again, in the second line, the original has how ? in- 
stead of ho ! 

Act IV., Scene 15. 

P. 168. Sun, 

Burn the great sphere thou movest in ! darkling stand 
The varying sidiX 6' the world! — The original has "The varry- 
mg shore o' th' world." — The correction is Staunton's, and a very 
happy one it is too. As the word was commonly written starre, it 
might easily be misprinted shore. Star, with some epithet, such as 
moist or watery, is repeatedly used by Shakespeare for the Moon. See 
foot-notes i and 2. 

P. 168. Pm dying, Egypt, dying ; only yet 

I here impdrtune death awhile, &c. — So Pope. The original 
is without yet. 

P. 168. I dare not, dear, — 

Dear my lord, pardon, pardon me, — / dare not. 
Lest I be taken : &c. — The original reads " Deere my Lord 
pardon: I dare not." As the line is shockingly mutilated, several 
ways have been proposed for completing it. Theobald ends the pre- 
vious line with "I dare not," and then reads "Dear, dear my \ox^,your 
pardon, that I dare not." I think the sense fully justifies the repetition 
of pardon, and that the simplest way of completing the verse is by in- 
serting me. 

P. 169. And welcome, welcome ! die where thou hast lived. — The 
original has when instead of where. Corrected by Pope. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 219 

P. 170. And do now not basely die, 

Nor coxvardly put off my helmet, &c. — The original has Not in- 
stead of Nor. Corrected by Pope. 

P. 171. O, see, my women, 

The crown 0^ the Earth doth melt. — My lord! my lord ! — 
O, wither'' d is the garland of the war, &c. — So Walker. The 

second my lord! is not in the original. As Walker says, " surely the 

repetition is required." 

P. 171. No more but e'en a woman, &c. — So Johnson and Capell. 
The original reads "No more but in a Woman." 

Act v., Scene i. 

P. 173. Being so frustrate, tell him he mocks us by 

The pauses that he makes. — The original reads " he mocks the 
pawses that he makes." Walker notes upon the passage thus: "Can a 
good sense be made out of the original reading ? the play of words 
seems a very strong argument in its favour." But I do not see how it 
is possible to strain any sense at all out of the original reading. The 
words us by were inserted by Malone ; and with that insertion a clear 
and fitting sense is gained at once, and the metre rectified at the same 
time. 

P. 173. The breaking of so great a thing should make 

A greater crack : the round-viproa.red loorld 

Should Jiave shook lions into civil streets. 

And citizens to their dens. — In the original, the second of these 
lines is shockingly mutilated, both in metre and in sense, thus : " A 
greater cracke. The round world." It is evident, I think, that round 
is no fitting epithet to world here, unless in combination with some 
other word ; as round-encircling, round-convulsed, or round-upheaving. 
Shakespeare elsewhere uses to uproar as a transitive verb, and in a 
sense well fitting the present place. Mr. P. A. Daniel conjectures " A 
greater crack in the round world." With this change, breaking be- 
comes the subject both of should make and of sJiould have shook ; which 
seems a rather harsh construction. See foot-note 2. 



220 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

P. 174. Caes. Look you sad, friends ? 

The gods rebuke me, but it is a tidings 

To wash the eyes of kings : and strange it is 

That nature must compel us to lament 

Our most persisted deeds. — The original makes this two 
speeches, the first ending with kings, and prefixes ^^Dol?^ to the second. 
But Dolabella has just been sent away on special business by Caesar, 
And so Theobald assigned the latter half of the speech to Agrippa. 
But surely, as Mr. P. A, Daniel suggests, it comes more fitly from 
Caesar. To the next speech but one, also, the original prefixes "Dola.^^ 

P. 174. His taints and honours 

Waged equal with him. — Rowe and Collier's second folio sub- 
stitutes Weighed for Waged. Rightly, I suspect. See, however, foot- 
note 5, 

P, 175. I must perforce 

Have shown to thee such a declining day. 

Or look'd on thine. — The original has looke instead of looked. 
Hanmer's correction. 

P. 175, We'll hear him what he says. — Whence are you, sir? — 
So Capell. The original lacks sir. 

P. 1 76, For Ccesar cannot live 

To be ungentle. — So Rowe and Southern. The original has 
leave instead of live. Tyrwhitt conjectured learn, which is preferred 
by some. 

Act v.. Scene 2. 

P, 177, Which sleeps, and never palates more the dung, 

The beggar'' s nurse and Cczsar's. — Warburton and Collier's 
second folio substitute dug for dung, — very injudiciously, I think ; 
though Dyce adopts dug, and says in a note, "To me the word nurse 
is almost alone sufficient evidence that dung is a transcriber's or prin- 
ter's mistake for dug." But Cleopatra has never palated the dug since 
she was a baby ; and the sense of the passage clearly requires some 
contemptuous word for the common supports of human life, as such, — 
the food that she has to palate every day. See foot-note 2. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 221 

P. 179. Gal. You see how easily she may be surprised. — Instead of 
"Gal.^\ the original here repeats "Pro.'", the prefix to the preceding 
speech. Corrected by Malone. 

P. 179. Here Proculeius and two of the Guard ascend, &c. — The 
original has no stage-direction here ; and this was made up by Malone 
from the narrative in North's Plutarch. 

P. 181. Rather on Nilus'' mud 

Lay me stark-naked, and let water-Jlies 

Blow me into abhorring. — The original has, " and let the 
water-Flies," &c. 

P. 181. And he hath sent for thee : 2& for the Qtieen, 

ril take her to my guard. — So the second folio. The first 
omits as. Dyce and Walker read " And he hath sent me for thee : for 
the Queen," &c. I do not see but that the sense is the same in both 
readings. 

P. 182. For his bounty. 

There was no Winter in't ; an Autumn ^twas 
That grew the more by reaping. — So Theobald. The original 
reads "An Anthony it was." Professor Corson contends stoutly for 
the old text. " If," says he, " ' An Anthony it was ' is not right, * an 
autumn 'twas ' is certainly wrong. It is too tame for the intensely im- 
passioned speech in which it occurs, or, rather, into which it has been 
introduced by the editors. Again, if autumn could, by metonymy, be 
wrenched to mean the crops of autumn, it could hardly be said that an 
autumn grows the more by reaping. Now, could the 'less Greek' 
which, Ben Jonson tells us, Shakespeare possessed, have enabled him 
to see in Antho7iy the word avQo<: ? His Bounty had no winter in it ; 
it was a mead of perennial luxuriance, affording a flowering pasturage 
(^Avd6vofioQ), and 'that grew the more by reaping.' " 

But it appears that the old reading, with this explanation of it, if it 
have any meaning at all, must mean that Antony's bounty was a flower- 
cropper, or flower-ifa/^?-, that grew the more by eating. I probably 
cannot do better than to leave the question in the hands of Mr, Joseph 
Crosby and Mr. James Spedding. The former, in a letter to me, justly 



222 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 

observes that "aveovdi^oc does not m<.2x. flower-producing, h»t flower 
feeding or flower-comuming. N£/«. is rather to comume than to *ro 
^«« and ^schylus uses &flow//& in the sense of to feed on flowers 
So ave^o/ioc, while it would be a very good epithet for a bee seems i^ 
me a poor one for the open-handed bounty so glowingly pictured by 
Cleopatra ; mdeed, rf I am right in my construction of the word wordd 
make it imply the very reverse of what she intended." After the above 
was wrmen, the following from Mr. Spedding appeared in mus and 

^ZT/r \ {''■ "'.'''"'°' ""'"^'^"^ P™f- Corson's objec- 
faon to Auu^n. In the curstve black-letter hand of the time, AuJ.in 
might easily be wntten so as to be hardly distinguishable from An^onie 
and surely It makes better sense and better poetry. I should instanc 
.t as one of the noblest, boldest, and Mveliest images in poetry 'An 
Autumn that grew the more by reaping,' _ that, the more you took of 
Its harvests, the more there remained to take, -is surely as great an 
image of bounty- as the mind in its most impassioned stL ver 
ereated. As for the difficulty of understanding by Autumn the crop 
of Autumn how is it more difficult than to understand by "Winter' the 
absence of crops. And what are we to come to ? Instead of allowing 
Tennyson to say, - 'To strip a hundred hoUoM-s bare of Spring,' - wf 
shall have to ask him to print Sprigs for Spring. As for the amount 
of Shakespeare's Greek, of which he has left us no means of judging 
the difficulty IS to understand how he could have had Greek enough to 
know that ave„c meant a flower without knowing also that An^on. 
could «./ mean a pasture of flowers; and not only could not really 
mean it but could not, by any process of association, legitimate or il- 
legitimate, suggest the image to an Englishman." 

P. 183. Sut, if there be, or ever were, one such, 

rf„ ^ Z'''^"^' "" ""' "f'''-""""'^-- &c.-The original has nor in- 
stead of or. Corrected in the third folio. 

^' '*3- But 1 do feel. 

By the rebound of yours, a grief that smites 

My very^ heart at root. -The original has suites for smites. 








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